I'm The Black, You Be The Orange
by imtheblackyoubetheorange
Summary: OITNB TV show left me hungry. It made me go to sleep thinking of Alex and Piper, made me walk down the streets thinking of what could have happened "if". So waiting for the distant June 2016, I eat and I breathe Vause and Chapman. What I write doesn't cut anything from the original story, maybe just tries to make that dumb Piper look less bitch and loves picturing Missing Moments.
1. I Wasn't Ready

When Piper first stepped into prison, the other girls just kept staring at her. They thought she was _that_ famous singer. But she continued walking along the corridor, holding her new striped pillow tight to her chest and a toothbrush and a toothpaste hidden in her fist.

The other girls, hand put on one side of their mouths, whispered and shh-shoued to the inmates standing right next to them. Then they laughed and sent Piper a look that was even more cruel and evil, if possible.

"I know you, right?" a girl with copper-colored curly hair not just bumped into her, but grabbed Piper's shoulders and forced her to turn around. She wasn't wearing orange, like Piper, but that cachi-colored uniform they all wore. That uniform had the same faded look the face of the inmate standing in front of her had. Her mouth and eyes were circled by some strange lines which made her look tired and gave her a savage grin. Maybe she was just funny, you could think when you first met inmate Nichols. Or maybe she was high or she was a badass of a smoker.

"Mmh. Nope" whispered Piper. "I don't think so".

 _I'm not shaking, come on, put yourself together girl, she isn't gonna hurt me, she's just an inmate like me, she isn't gonna hurt me, right?_ thought Piper.

"Pretty little angel face you got there," she said. "I bet my ass I've already seen you around. What are you, kind of a pop star?"

"Hell no," said Piper, but she realized she had turned her head away while saying that and she was speaking damn fast, her eyes were twitching as they always did when she was nervous.

The inmate in front of her slightly tilted her head on one side, like a curious dog asking you to repeat that last word one more time.

"Look" Piper burst out, "I've already been told that, but I'm gonna have to repeat it to you. I'm not Lindsay Lohan, ok?"

"Oh, I wasn't thinking about that crack ass blonde haired girl. Someone more like… what was the name? Adele… you know?"

Piper's face turned pale. She turned her back to that strange-as-fuck inmate and walked away to the bunk she was assigned to.

 _Shut up, she said nothing, you heard nothing,_ sang a tiny voice in Piper's head.

"By the way, my name's Nicky!" yelled the copper-haired girl behind her, but Piper ignored her.

 _Litchfield is a women's prison_ , Piper repeated to herself while stepping into her block. _No place for men in here, right?_

But her new bunk mate, with that grimace on her dark skin and her military hair cut, looked like a stocky, scary man. Miss Claudette was her name, Piper was told. Her lips almost lid up on her teeth when she saw Piper coming in. She put down the black cup she was holding in her hands and looked at Piper as if she was a bug's useless shit.

"Don't you dare come in here with your shoes on."

Piper stepped into the block. She let her pillow, her toothbrush and toothpaste fall down from her arms on the empty-folded green mattress she was assigned to. She put her chin up, as granny always told her to do when facing the enemy. Her devilish look was underlined by the deep dark circles that the last two hours of prison drew beneath her eyes.

"You listen to me. I am no Adele nor Lindsay Lohan. I'm getting my shoes and my feet and my criminal ass walking on this floor and in this block. And yes, I'm gonna need some of your air to breath, and some space for my shit, for as long as we'll be forced to share this fucking hole. Cause you're in here, absolving your criminal shit, and I'm in here, paying for my criminal shit too."

Silence. There was a long pause, hanging in the air on an invisible string, stretched and sharp like the tip of a knife.

Litchfield was a women's prison with no place for men nor smiles, but for a moment Piper thought she had just seen one: a smile curved Miss Claudette's lips high up and disappeared right away like a ghost.

"Ok" said that smile, but Miss Claudette's mouth said no word. She turned around and grabbed her smoking black cup of tea.

"Oh, and" Piper added "can I have one of those hooks down there?"

That night she cried, her eyes wide opened, staring at the lamps on the ceiling. She realized she wanted to sing. No, that was inaccurate: she craved to let her voice come out of her lungs, through her throat, scratching the air through her teeth and tongue and lips. But she couldn't. She had made a promise, she remembered to herself, as she always did, every single day and every single night.


	2. Tit Punch

It wasn't like she hadn't seen her. Piper _did_ see Alex, her gorgeous-goddess-ex-girlfriend-drug dealer for an International drug cartel. God, whom she hadn't seen for more than eight years. But maybe it was just her mind playing tricks to her. After all, she was really going nuts, _hocus pocus_ insane and crazy and ridiculous, that other day after lunch.

She remembered her face crumbling while she let herself fall on her heels. She was crying, trying to hide her face behind her bare hands, when she suddenly saw that familiar face –God, how could she not be familiar?- reflected into the water on the ground.

 _Gorgeous goddess ex-girlfriend_ , Piper thought.

"Maybe this is a bad time to say hi, huh?" Piper remembered that voice saying.

But those weren't real memories, those were just the foolish games of her sick and starved head. Was it even possible for Alex Vause to be there? In the same Federal Institution of Corrections of Litchfield? Maybe…but not _that_ possible anyway.

Piper pushed her head back and enjoyed that rare sun that warmed her. She liked the sun so much Larry used to say Piper was cheating on him with the sun. She was lying on her elbows, her head tilted back and her hair hanging down on the warm grass. It was her first time out in the yard, and inmates in long grey trousers and white sweaters ran all around her, other chased each other by the basketball field.

 _I should ask Healy,_ Piper thought. _I'll tell him it's for my own safety. If Alex Vause is really here…I should ask…_

"You should ask what?"

That voice. You couldn't get it wrong, not even if it whispered in a crowd of a million people. Piper raised her head.

 _beautiful gorgeous ex…_

"Alex."

"That's me." She sat down next to her and bent her legs. Then she crossed her legs and grabbed her feet and looked at her.

"We didn't really have time to say hello, and the other day…"

"Bad time, yes"

"Aha. But you look fine now."

Silence. Piper didn't dare turning her eyes away from her so she could get back to her sun. If Larry thought the sun was her secret lover, then what was Alex for her?

"I'm ok."

Alex laughed. "Oh, come on, look at you. You've been starved since you've been here and then you managed to sort thing out with Red thanks to that sweetie little face, and now you're the Great Piper. Enjoying the sun, as if you were laying on a gold sand beach instead of being in a fucking jail."

"It's _prison,_ not jail."

"Aha. And I'm the idiot who's been starved now."

"What? Alex…You're the one who's being starved?"

"Ok, sorry. Sorry for that Pipes, it's ok. Really, it's fine."

She looked worn out, as if she had been racing a thousand miles marathon against pain, or maybe it was more accurate saying a ten years' marathon. Piper felt like she was going to burst out all the feeling she had been caging inside since she had that strange hallucination of seeing Alex in prison. But now that Alex was really there she felt what? Relieved? Harmless?

 _Pipes_

"I'm sorry you got in here" Alex said "I wanted you to know that. But I'm glad to see you."

Piper nodded. For a moment she felt as if Alex's eyes were sliding on her body, all along her neck and down to her white-cotton sweater and on those chunky grey trousers. She was staring at her as if she had known her and every single inch and angle of hers for a thousand years, and now she was just investigating their old house's rooms, checking that everything was in the same place Alex had left them.

"You look different." Alex finally said.

But that feeling stopped and Piper turned her eyes and caught a look of Watson running in the distance.

"Ok then" Alex said. "See you around".

* * *

Yes, Piper had promised Larry she was going to get ripped in jail…pardon, prison, but she felt like the whole story with Red had trained her muscles enough. However, Nicky had got her into this, and Morello was there, Taystee and her friends too, even Yoga Jones was there.

"You can't be serious, man!" said Taystee "are we really supposed to fold our hands with this?" She put up her right hand over her head, shaking a roll of toilet paper.

"I'm not doing this" burst out Taystee. She crossed her arms over her chest and sent Nicky and incendiary stare. Nicky was standing in the middle of a circle formed by the other girls, and she didn't look very confident.

"This is bullshit" a girl Piper didn't know threw her toilet paper on the ground and left, shaking her head.

"Alright, then. Go ahead, you all get the fuck out of here. But the next time Pornstache touches your boobies you're all gonna come to my bunk asking for some drugs cause you'll want so stop thinking about that" she took a deep breath "So, who's in?"

Big Boo seemed to weigh the toilet paper in her hand. "Oh, alright, let's beat the shit out of those toilets" she said and no one laughed, but none of them left the room.

Nicky showed them how to use a roll of paper for both hands as a strapping tape. "It's your knuckles you gotta protect" she said, lifting her fist in the air and hitting it against the palm of the other hand. Piper did how she was told to, but it was when she was forced to stand in front of Suzanne and jab-jab her fists into the air while jumping that she started feeling stupid. That wasn't her fake boxing gym she used to go to three times a week in the Upper East Side. She just felt stupid down there. Plus, Crazy Eyes wasn't helping her, with all those kisses she mimed and sent her. Piper almost signed a goal with her right fist into Suzanne's face when she spelled the words: "I love you, Dandelion" with no voice coming out of her mouth.

Piper pulled herself back and stumbled into someone else's feet. She fell down like a sack of potatoes over a bucket. It was full of dirty water and cleaning rags. It all ended up on Piper's uniform.

"Never lower your guard" Nicky was saying while rubbing herself against Morello's back and grabbing her breast. "Ok, Chapman, that's a KO for you. Looks like you've been taken down by the pure power of" she looked at Crazy Eyes "love".

 _Fuck, this is stupid_ , Piper thought. They were all jumping around in that old shack in the yard that looked like an abandoned greenhouse with a bunch of brooms and broken flower vases. She was never going to get ripped. She was just mummy's pretty blonde bourgeois college girl. A pussy. She tried standing up, but the toilet paper on her hands made her slip in the dirt again.

"Ok, ladies. Which one of you is going to explain to me what the fuck is going on in here?"

Pornstache's voice thundered the whole greenhouse. O'Neill was with him, standing on the doorstep with his arms crossed on his blue paunch. The girls spread, some of them sneaked behind the guards and ran away. Piper was still trying to stand up when Pornstache yelled her name, holding his thumbs inside his belt. Nicky grabbed her from behind and helped her, with a mixture of guilt and pity printed on her face. «Looks like you're in trouble, Dandelion» were Nicky's words.

Later on, they entered the laundry running. Piper was bent double with laughter and held her belly with her arms, while Nicky tried whispering something, but the words came out loud in a choked laughter. They both looked drunk.

"I think you got him nicely horny, Chapman!"

"Shut up!" Piper laughed.

"And you just got the cleaning's night shift for a week. How the fuck did you do that? If Pornstache blamed me, I would've gone straight to shu."

"But why me…"

Suddenly they seemed to realize they were in the laundry and Pennsatucky and Leanne were staring at them like a bunch of aliens. Piper's uniform was a mess of water and dirt, and she was still wearing those useless strips of toilet paper around her hands. Gina showed up on the doorstep and broke that odd silence.

"Nichols, Red's been asking for you."

Nicky threw a last glance around the laundry, then she lid her arms in the air as if she knew nothing about that, and left.

Pennsatucky and Leanne looked at Piper with disgusted faces and turned the corner pushing the clothes' cart.

"Hey, look, I just need…" but they were gone and ignored her.

"What do you need?"

She turned around to the direction the voice was coming from and Alex was there, Piper realized with surprise. Of course she was, she worked there. But how long had she been standing there and looking at her like that? Piper grabbed the hems of her wet and dirty sweater and suddenly felt ashamed.

"I was just wondering whether I could have my other….mmm, you know, uniform? This one seems to have been through a lot" she laughed, a nervous laugh, but when she raised her eyes she found Alex was smiling. It was that smart, naughty smile which always gave her shivers down her spine when…

Piper closed her eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again, she had to keep back threatening memories that were trying to come back to the surface.

"Sure. Here" she threw a sack to her, and Piper embraced it as if it were a life vest.

"Mmm. I can't…the guards out there, if they see…Pornstache said…can you just…"

"Are you asking me not to stare?" that clever smile on her face again. "You can change in here. I won't look, I promise."

Piper pulled her trousers and let them slide down her legs to her ankles and got the clean pair from the canvas.

"I'm a pussy, you know?"

Alex burst out with laughter. She looked at Piper from behind her glasses, then she picked up an orange sweater from the cart next to her and unfolded it.

"How so?"

"You know I am. I'm serious" She pulled the new clean trousers up her long legs, then she took off her sweater. She feared she was going to go on fire with embarrassment. That white prison's bra made her boobies look like the tip of a gun. But then she suddenly blocked, her eyes staring right in front of her.

"I'm never gonna be ripped. You know, muscular and toned-up with nice abs the other girls would crave for. I'm a bookworm" she said and looked at Alex, her eyes wide opened like two lightbulbs. "I'm never gonna be funny, and hot, and I'm never gonna dance for real in a disco."

She put her white T-shirt on.

"But I guess I'm ok with that."

Alex stopped folding clothes. Her fists were tightly clutched to the edges of the table, her knuckles were white, and she looked as if she was going to do something or reply something to Piper, but she didn't. She put her head down and got back to her picking up-unfolding-folding. She smiled.

That same night Piper carried her new one-week night shift's babies with her: a mop, a broom and a water bucket. She cleaned the whole corridor and then did it again because she had started from the wrong direction and was forced to step on her shiny work.

She was cleaning the D-block bathroom when she stopped and looked at her image in the mirror. Her face, put right next to a broom's stick, was yellowed by the trembling light on the ceiling. Was she really OK with it? she wondered.

 _Of course not, you're in prison, you can't expect yourself to be nice and sexy down here,_ she thought.

She released the broom's stick from her fingers' grasp and let it fall down with a loud plastic noise. She took the water bucket and left the bathroom. She got out through the door by the yard and agent Bell didn't change her usual disgusted expression when she saw Chapman and her bucket.

"I'm keeping my eye on you, Chapman" she said.

She passed next to agent Maxwell, who was yawning to that fucking invisible ball.

"Don't ask" she said. "Just do your thing."

"Officer Mendez's instructions are cleaning" Piper replied.

Maxwell ignored her. Piper managed to discern Gina, Norma and Leanne, holding each other's hands in a circle, together with some other girls. They were sitting on the grass in the middle of the courtyard.

"I take this ball of blue energy" said Gina, her eyes shut "and pass it to you."

"Ok, ladies. Ten more minutes and you're out of here" Maxwell yelled.

Piper got into the old shack that used to be a greenhouse. She put the bucket down and the torch she got from the commissary between the wood planks. She didn't want to be seen, but she didn't care getting caught by one of the guards, even if this time they would have sent her straight to shu.

* * *

Alex waited for Maxwell to turn around to the entrance so she could get up and sneak off. She ignored the strange looks the other inmates gave her, they weren't going to say anything anyway. She had hoped that a night in the open air, even if she was with all those misfit-idiots, was the closest she could get to a sort of freedom. Sky, stars, freedom of staring at the moon maybe. A weak light illuminated the shack and Alex lied down on her belly next to the doorstep before Piper or the guards could see her. What the fuck was Piper doing in there, anyway?

She opened the door wide enough to see her. Her hair was gathered up in a wild bun, was the first thing Alex noticed, and blond hair locks hanged down on her sweaty face. She wore nothing but her white bra and her trousers were lifted up above her kneels. Piper did a strange pivot on one foot and turned around to the door. Alex was sure she had been caught, but when she looked back inside the shut, the yellow torch lighted up her sweaty back and her solid-muscled legs.

A lump climbed up Alex's throat and she couldn't understand whether she wanted to laugh, maybe to yell or to grab Piper by her hair. She saw the toilet paper folding her hands and she saw the stubborn look in her eyes and the sweat that came down her abs, she saw how elegant she was while hitting an invisible enemy in front of her. She saw how solid and thick her thighs looked, the trousers' cloth rolled up her wet skin. Alex stood up and stepped into the greenhouse. Piper's white fist hit her on her breast and pushed her away before they could bump into each other. Piper stopped and looked at her out of breath, like she was still trying to understand what was happening and how to get out of her trance.

"You are" Alex got nearer to her and lid her hands close to Piper's face, she just wanted to grab her face and kiss her "you are _hot._ Ok?" She let her hesitancy make her hands shake so close to Piper's lips, then her fingers contracted with rage and her hands closed into fists, powerless. She let them hanging to her sides and a lamp of sorrow crossed her face.

Alex turned away and left.


	3. Hiding My Heart

"Come on, P." Taystee said "I'm telling you she ain't that one."

"And how do you know?" Poussey pushed her laundry bag on her back. "She's never showed her face on the Tee-Vee! But I'll tell you this: that voice, I'd recognize it anywhere!"

"What are you girls talking about?"

Pennsatucky looked at them with shy eyes and moved her body weight from one leg to another when Taystee and P. both struck her with a threatening gaze.

"Mind you own business, white girl" was Taystee's rough answer. Doggett moved her lips saying "Alright" but with no voice coming out from her mouth and turned back to the washing machine.

"Whatever P. She's too skinny and blond to be Adele anyway. Besides, why should Adele be here in Litch with us?"

Taystee dropped her laundry sack on the desk without waiting for an answer.

"We'll leaving these, lady" she said and put on the serious-distant face she used for dealing with strangers and white people. P. dropped her sack on the desk too, but Taystee tilted her head and furrowed her eyebrows.

"Aren't you that white girl's girlfriend?" she asked. "The new ones?"

Alex Vause remained indifferent and took the bags and placed them away, then she wrote something in a tiny notebook she held against her palm.

"You mean Chapman" interrupted Doggett with a horrible toothless smile.

Alex let her eyes slip on her, but then she ignored her and pulled out a piece of yellow paper from the notebook. «She's not my girlfriend».

"Oh, come on" Taystee put her hands on the desk and leant forward. "We'll keep it between us. Is that white girlie really. You know. Adele?" she whispered and moved her head right and left to make sure no one was listening.

Alex put on a teasing smile.

"Adele?"

"The _Someone Like You_ girl. _Rolling in the deep_?"

"I don't know anything about that Chapman."

"See, P.? Told you. Adele's just a stupid name some girl from college invented so she could hide behind a microphone on the Internet. She's never showed up around cause she doesn't exist. Maybe the voice is just a trick with the computer, you know."

"But…"Poussey tried.

"I bet she's not even white. If she exists, she must be a ghetto black girl. Maybe she's one of us and we don't even know."

P. didn't seem sure, she just looked sad and resigned. He put her arms up and let them fall on her sides.

"Ok, fine."

"Take these" Alex handed them two pieces of yellow paper "and go play _American Idol_ elsewhere."

They left arguing. Alex and Pennsatucky's eyes met from one corner of the room to the other. Doggett looked at her with a strange face, like she believed nothing of that bullshit Alex just told them, and then slammed the washing machine's door violently.

* * *

Piper was humming under the shower. The water came out warm and she closed her eyes and put her face under it. She had followed Sophia's advice and decided to have a shower at 5 AM. There was no line, no people staring at her, plus there was hot water.

She had this strange melody buzzing in her head that she couldn't ignore. She was in the "song-making mood", that's how she used to call it. But so much time had passed since she last felt like that, like she wanted not just to sing but to make up the words to fill her voice with. But why _there,_ in prison, and why _now?_

She turned off the water and passed her hands over her face, closed her eyes.

 _I can't_ , she told herself. _I just can't sing._

She covered herself with the towel and put her flip-flops on.

 _I promised I would sing no more._

She moved the plastic curtains away and stepped out of the shower cube. She stopped.

Alex raised her eyes from the sink and looked at Piper through the mirror. No disturbing emotions seemed to cross her face, she just stopped brushing her teeth for a few seconds. She was wearing the white undershirt that revealed her shoulders and the upper part of her back's skin and tattoos. Piper stood still, water was coming down her hair and neck.

"I'm here at 5:00 just about every day," Alex said and then leant over the sink. "You don't like it, avoid it."

"You named me."

"What?"

"You turned me in."

"You carried that bag full of money. No one ever put a gun to your head!" Alex turned to face her with an expression of anger drawn on her face.

"You didn't have to take me down with you."

"No? Well, this is how the story went."

"I was scared."

"You loved it!"

"I _was_ in love, Alex. You blew me away," Alex's face seemed to soften as she listened to Piper. "But you used me."

"You left me!"

"I wish I could…"but she stopped in the middle of the sentence.

 _This is how the story went,_ a melody sang in Piper's head.

She pushed away those strange words echoing in her ears. "I was building a life, Alex. I had a home and…"

"You called that home?" Alex looked like she was about to lose her temper and stepped toward Piper with her forefinger pointed at her. "You were just this little girl from Connecticut, who wanted to feel special and bad. Your fiancé might buy this bullshit, but I know you. _I_ know you."

 _I call that home,_ Piper sang in her head.

"And, yeah, maybe I turned you in, because I never forgave you for leaving, because you broke my fucking heart."

She turned her back to Piper and walked away. Piper felt like those words had made a tremble run inside her. It seemed to her as years of her life were peeling off her just like the drops of water fell down from her wet skin. But there was something, something she _had_ to do. She ran away from the bathroom and didn't even seem to notice she had passed near Alex, who stopped in the middle of the corridor and looked at her like she was hit by a truck. Piper ran all along the corridors, with her sticky flip-flops clapping and holding the towel above her breast.

 _She blew me away,_ she kept thinking.

"No running, Chapman," Pornstache came out from the CO bubble holding a sandwich in his hands. "You better stop before I give you a shot."

Piper slowed down, catching all of the other inmates' attention. She marched quickly like a funny soldier to her bunk and rushed to get some paper.

"Hold on, hold on!" Miss Claudette put away the wood spoon she was moving over her improvised camp stove. "You're not getting in here all wet."

Piper ignored her. She grabbed a notebook and a pencil and got all the paper wet with her just-showered hands and wrists. She didn't care, she had to put this down now.

 _This is how the story went,_ she wrote.

 _I met someone by accident_

 _Who blew me away, blew me away_

While writing, she kept humming and singing the melody in her head. She just needed a guitar now, but where was she supposed to get one?

Miss Claudette was quiet now, and sat on her bed with her hands in her lap, staring in a suspicious way to that young white lady covered in a towel, bent on a piece of paper with her wet hair hanging down and looking like she was out of her mind.

When Piper finished, she signed using her name, her secret name, at the bottom of the song. No one was ever going to know, she decided. She wasn't breaking the promise as long as no one knew. On top of the paper she wrote the song's name, "Hiding My Heart".


	4. Imaginary Enemies

**I'll never stop apologizing for the many unnoticed errors in my English. Thank you for reading.**

Piper put her hand into her hoodie's pocket and touched the screwdriver. She wished she had had a few more seconds of lucidity, so that she could think of how scared she was supposed to be. But the only thing she could think of was:

 _Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck._

She raised her eyes up and there was Nicky, staring at her as if the prison alarm was buzzing again.

"Chapman? You sure you didn't get hit by a truck?"

And there was this other girl, with her weird tattooed-neck, handing her a folded piece of paper.

"Hey brain, I wanna ask you something. Would you help me with my appeal request? I hear you're hella smart."

Piper just stared at her, still trying to understand how was it possible for that fucked-up humans standing in front of her to make sounds come out of their mouths while she was holding a fucking screwdriver in her pocket.

"Mercy's getting out" the girl added "I thought you might help me with my case."

"Maybe you could help me with mine too."

When Piper turned around she found herself a few inches distant from Alex's glasses. She held her hands in her grey sweatshirt's pockets and had a teasing smile on her face.

"Fuck" Piper cupped her face in her hands. "Fuck, fuck."

Now Alex seemed pretty alarmed too.

"What's wrong, Pipes?"

"They're gonna kill me."

 _Who is gonna kill you?_ Alex was about to ask, but she forced herself not to. She couldn't just simply show the others how scared she suddenly was. Piper walked away, a hollow look in her eyes. She kept saying "Fuck!".

Two days later, Piper was sitting in the library, climbing up a pile of appeal request papers and charge letters. Now that the whole thing with Miss Claudette and the screwdriver was sorted out – even if she didn't know the screwdriver had ended up in Boo's hands and then under Doggett's mattress- she had found herself buried by the other inmates' legal cases. Was she becoming something like a prison lawyer?

She took off the reading glasses she had borrowed from Miss Claudette and rubbed her eyes. She felt tired and the words kept moving and swapping and shifting on the papers. Besides, what did «open-ended charge under the accuse of illegal food stamp fraud» mean?

She stood up and walked among the bookshelves. She let her feet guide her and passed the tip of her fingers on the pages and borders of the books lying in order on the wooden shelves. It had always worked like that: she didn't really need to look for books because books used to find _her._ She stubbed her foot against a book on the ground, hanging above someone's face. When Piper hit the black-covered book, it fell on an inmate's breast.

"Oh, I'm sorry…"Piper said.

"Why do you always seem to naturally bump into me?"

Alex was lying on her back on the floor, holding a book opened like a butterfly on her stomach. She sat down cross-legged leaning her back against the bookshelves and took her glasses off. Piper tilted her head and lid her eyebrows.

"I've got to admit you got this one right." Pause. "What are you doing here?"

"So, you're saying I can't be a classy lady self-culturing herself inside a library?"

Piper pulled her cheeks and looked away searching for the right answer. She burst out laughing.

"God, no!"

Alex laughed too.

"And what are you doing in your own house, bookworm?"

Piper sat down in front of Alex, her back pushed against the bookshelves. She bent her kneels to her chest and took a folded piece of paper from her hoodie's pocket.

"Trying to figure out how a fraud might be illegal and about food at the same time, I guess. Also, writing down all a bunch of other girls' appeals."

They stood in silence for a while looking at each other.

"Can I try your glasses?" Piper asked.

Alex's smile grew bigger. "Why?"

"I never did, now that you ask me. I've never tried them before" she realized with amazement "nor did I ever tease you because of your glasses."

"Maybe that's because they make me look fucking hot."

Piper tried, she tried so hard to ignore those last words. "Come on, give them to me" she said.

Alex took them off slowly and her fingers passed through her hair and rebel locks of black hair touched her skin lightly and it all seemed to Piper as if it was going on slow-motion. That smile, God, that smile made Piper think she was doing a great job being down there, on the earth and sitting on a library's floor with Alex. Their hands touched and a warm shock seemed to pass from one skin to the other.

"You look nice."Alex said when she tried them on.

"Thanks. _An application for review by a higher tribunal office is not provided within the above terms and condition"_ she read from the letter. "God, how am I supposed to help these people when all this stuff is so messed up? We all end up in here spending more time for bureaucracy's bullshit than for the crimes we committed."

She raised her eyes and looked at how Alex stared at her, caught and lost as if Piper were quoting a magic spell or Shakespeare's poetry. She loved it.

"Would you be my imaginary friend?" Piper asked.

"Why imaginary? So I don't exist?"

"No, no, nonono» Piper stood up quickly on her heels with her palms facing toward Alex, as if she wanted to stop her. "I didn't mean that. It's a trick, so we don't know we are _really_ friends and we can't fight or argue. You know. For real."

Alex moved her lips to one corner as if she was impressed.

"As long as we stop being imaginary enemies, I'm OK with it."

"Deal?"

"Deal."


	5. Cold grass

**I'm sorry for my English, I try my best but I know there are still lots of mistakes which I hope won't be unreadable. Hope you enjoy this brief Missing Moment from the past.**

"I guess I should ask what the fuck are you doing here" Nicky put her arms on her hips and looked at Piper from behind a curtain of bushy hair. "Damn, you don't look hot."

"Being starved isn't hot." Piper answered, her voice speaking without any inflection.

Morello and Vause showed up behind Nicky's shoulders.

"What? Why are you being starved out? Are you OK?" Alex fell on her knees next to her, her hands reached her and Piper felt the smooth hold of her fingers through the thick cloth on her arms. She gazed at her with an alarmed look in her eyes.

"Is Red still mad at you because of that chicken-story?" Lorna asked, with that half annoying and half sexy childish accent.

Piper nodded. She didn't move her head to look at the inmates around her, she didn't have the energy to do that, she thought. She stood there, watching the grey clouds above her head, as she had been doing for the last few hours. That morning after breakfast, the umpteenth breakfast she was deprived of, she had gone out in the yard and reached the perimeter fence. She remembered walking for a while like a ghost, with her pale fingers caressing the cold enclosure and her eyes looking absently at the lake on the other side of the fence. At one point she decided to lie down, even if she didn't well remember when and why. Maybe it was because of the hunger, but was she really losing her memory?

"Look, Chapman, Momma's wrong this time, ok? But you gotta get up and go back before the count starts or they'll give you a few more years in jail and charge you because of your stupid attempted-escape" she lid her arms up and looked around furiously "in the fucking yard. Lorna and I, we're going to talk to Red. Come on, Lorna."

Nicky threw one last look to Alex as she pushed one hand on Lorna's back and drove her away. Piper missed that look, but if she had seen it she probably would have noticed hope and a naughty encouragement in Nicky's eyes. When they left, Piper reached out the cold wire fence and grabbed it once more, as if that gesture could take her away from prison and hunger, by the lake, back into free-life.

She felt a soft cold hand closing its fingers on her cheek and when she turned around Alex was still there, worry-lines draw on her forehead. Was Alex there? Why was Alex there? Piper asked herself. _Wasn't she gone with…God I'm definitely losing it, I'm losing my mind,_ she thought.

"Do you mind if I lay down with you? "

Piper stupidly stared at how her strong boots pressed the frosted grass underneath.

"It's OK" she whispered.

Alex laid down so close Piper felt shivers cross her whole body when her fingers' tips touched Alex's. With the corner of her eye she saw Alex's face turned to the sky. Suddenly she forgot how tired she was and how cold the grass she was lying on and how nasty the sense of her wet hair spread on the ground was. She felt a burst of heat light up her face.

"Looks nice here." Alex said.

"Mmh."

"But you don't look fine."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"If you're not the asshole who turned me in, then I'm the asshole who left you when you mother died and ignored you and pretended I hated you for all this years."

"And you do?" Alex tilted her head on the wet grass so that she could look her in the eyes. She stared at the blond locks that surrounded the perfect outlines of her face. Piper felt Alex's breath into her ear.

"No, I don't hate you. I guess I've wanted it so much that I ended up wearing out all the reasons I could use to hate you. But _why,_ Alex? _Why,_ despite all of this, you're still here? Why are you even lying down with me?"

Piper tilted her head and met Alex's eyes. Her elegant black hair curved so beautifully around her neck and Piper felt free to get lost into her eyes. They were her house, after all, and even if diving into those green islands was a right she didn't own anymore, she still felt Alex's eyes were the only right place for her to be in. Not on that stupid grass in the yard next to that death-fence with that grey sky and its illusory promise of freedom, but in Alex's warm eyes. There weren't many people with whom she felt she could spent an eternity looking in each other's eyes like that, as if she were offering her heart in her bare hands. Actually, there weren't any, there was just Alex.

Alex opened her lips and a thin thread of cold air passed through them. She wanted to tell her why and the answer to Piper's question was there, floating in the air and waiting for that tension to be cut. Piper craved for that answer, she was burning with the desire of hearing her say it.

But Alex closed her mouth and maintained her eyes fixed into Piper's. Her hand reached Piper's face and touched her chin so lightly Piper had to convince herself the touch really happened.

"Do _you_ hate me?" she asked.

"I did. I did, for a long time. But I don't hate you now."

They stood in silence for a while, staring into each other's skies of unspoken words and memories.

* * *

 _Piper held the coat hanger in front of her face. An elegant red dress hanged loose on it and Piper pressed it to her waist and swung gently left and right, staring at her image in the mirror. She freed on hand from her clasp on the top of the hanger and used it to push her hair on one side of her neck. She tilted her head from one side to another._

 _"Do you think I am pretty? Should I go for the red one?" she asked, turning away from the mirror with the dress pressed against her body. Alex raised her eyes from the book opened on her lap. She was lying in bed, her back leant against the headboard. A pair of black shorts covered her thighs and revealed her long legs, stretched into the messy sheets in which they'd been making love just a few moments ago. Watching her soft white skin and the way she bent one leg to her chest Piper realized she shouldn't have got up from bed. She never stopped wanting to make love with her._

 _"Mmh" Alex just said._

 _Piper rushed to get the blue dress and pressed it to her body, next to the red one._

 _"You think blue is more appropriate?"_

 _"I might have to take a closer look" she took her eyeglasses off and closed her eyes as her hair ruffled around her face. "I can't see it very well, you know?"_

 _"Well, you'll have to come see it yourself" Piper put up her chin and smiled provocatively at her._

 _Alex lid her hand and bent her forefinger twice toward Piper, then she tapped the empty space on the bed beside her._

 _"Nope. Red or blue? You must choose first, madam, and then I might undergo your conditions."_

 _Alex stood up on her kneels and reached the side of the bed Piper was standing by, without ever moving away her eyes from Piper's._

 _"May I know what the occasion is?"_

 _Piper felt Alex's hands grab her on the two sides of her waist, and sudden shivers ran all over her back and a lump came up in her throat, causing her difficulty speaking._

 _"Mmh…well. I guess I just want to be pretty for my girlfriend tonight." she linked her fingers behind Alex's neck and let them slide slowly on her back, her whole palms feeling the warmth of her skin._

 _"Well then," Alex smirked "I would recommend you that red dress that fits you perfectly, miss, but only so I can" she whispered in her ear "rip it off you later."_

 _Piper dropped both dresses and the coat hangers fell on the floor with a loud metallic noise. Alex pulled her against her and they kissed, and all that sex tension that had gathered between them melted into Piper's stomach like hot ice-cream and spread all over her body._

 _"Wait, no, wait," she tried to free herself from that passionate kiss, here lips smiling against Alex's while they were both out of breath. "Seriously, you have to pick one. I must get ready for tonig..."_

 _Piper tried to untie herself from Alex's arms and moved backwards until they both had their arms stretched toward one another. Alex, standing on her kneels on the edge of the bed, let Piper carry her away and they both fell down on the floor, into a mess of white sheets and red and blue dresses. They rolled over the hotel room's carpet and tightly clutched each other. They never separated their lips, not even to breathe._

 _Piper was overwhelmed by how much she wanted to kiss her, take her clothes off and touch every single corner of her skin. But as she kept her lips and body pressed so tightly to hers, she felt something bigger was growing inside her, something she had to tell Alex about. She forced herself to stop kissing her, sat on top of her and grabbed her face in her hands._

 _"I love you." she kissed her lips and eyes and cheeks saying "I love you" between each kiss._

 _"I love you too, Pipes" she looked happily stunned and passed her hand through Piper's hair and stroked it._

 _"I love you."_

 _"I love you too."_

 _"I don't want anything bad to ever happen to you."_

 _"Nothing bad will ever happen to me, as long as I'm with you."_

 _Piper raised her head and revealed a brilliant smile, her eyes shining with an inebriated sparkle. But something was wrong and Alex wouldn't look her in the eyes, she noticed. Her face was suddenly serious and distant and Piper thought she could read a sense of guilt in it. Alex grabbed the blond tips of Piper's hair and starting curving them around her fingers._

 _Piper got down from Alex's legs and laid down beside her, holding one hand on her breast and passing the other on Alex's forehead and down through her hair._

 _"What's wrong, my love?"_

 _"You've never called me "love" before."_

 _"But I do know. You are my love." she cupped Alex's face into her hands and gently put her lips on hers, closing her eyes during that brief moment Piper felt she was home._

 _"Then promise me you will stop singing."_

 _Piper gazed at Alex with a puzzled look. She took away her hand from Alex's face and moved back from her._

 _"What?"_

 _"You_ have _to stop singing, Piper" Alex got up leaning on her elbows. "You are making yourself a name. Your songs are becoming a huge thing. Kubra thinks this will attract too much attention on business."_

 _"I don't understa…"_

 _"If you'll keep getting so much attention people will start asking questions. And then it's just gonna take a moment till they get to me. With you being so visible, Kubra will always know where we are, and if something goes wrong he will find you straight away. He will find_ me, _and he'll never let go things like this."_

 _"But baby, nothing will…"_

 _"We're in danger, Piper! You can't be a famous singer and tour the world and expect to be safe when you're dating a drug dealer working for a vengeful boss like mine!"_

 _Piper pushed her body weight on her palms, pressed against the floor behind her back. She shook her head in disbelief. Alex sat down with her typically crossed-legs and took her face in her hands, pushed a lock of Piper's hair behind her ear. Piper let her eyes move down to Alex's lips and back into her eyes._

 _"I'm scared something might happen to you, Pipes. If it does, he'll…" she looked away. "I don't want anything to ever happen to you. You said you love me. So promise."_

 _They stood there staring into each other's eyes for an endless time. Piper's face was a mask of indifference and darkness, until she stroked Alex's cheek and pulled her softly back on the floor. She bent her legs against her chest and stared deep into her lover's eyes._

 _"I love you. I promise I won't sing anymore. Never again."_

 _Alex's face lighted up with relief and Piper smiled. She felt as if she were crushing and tearing apart a piece inside her, but was pleased to see how she could make the person she loved the most on the earth become so happy. She sucked up a bitter lump that was coming up her throat and pushed it deep inside her, where she could not notice it anymore._

 _Alex kissed her all over her face and neck and held her as they cuddled on the floor. With a bitter taste in her mouth Piper thought if that was the price to pay so that Alex could be safe and always by her side, well that was just nothing._

 _They stood down on the floor, and Piper stroked Alex's hair until she fell asleep._

 _I promise, she thought._


	6. It's up to you, Kid

**So, this chapter deals with Alex and Piper's split-up back in Paris. It's a flashback I think will turn up very useful. I actually wanted it to be a brief explanation before Alex and Piper's row in the laundry when they try to fix the dryer, but it came out much longer than I expected and I figured out this chapter would become way too heavy. I really hate Piper left Alex when her mother died and I came up with this version of her story, I hope you guys find it reasonable.**

 _Piper jumped on the bed, laid down on her belly and bent her legs by her knee. She was wearing a blue and white striped sweater and her breast pressed a white pillow. She focused on the blue tips of Alex's hair that hanged loose on her back and on the chair. Staring at those tips, she realized Alex didn't even notice she was in the room._

" _Alex, I miss you" she said, moving her legs in the air and softly hitting her butt with the heels of her shoes._

" _I don't have time."_

" _But I'm so cute. Look how cute I am" Alex never looked away from the computer screen, not even for a moment._

" _Babe, I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking stressed right now."_

" _You always are. I can't help feeling…" she turned her back to Alex and sat on the edge of the bed. Her hands tightly grabbed the sheets, causing her knuckles to turn white. "Is this our life now?"_

 _She stood there, waiting for an answer that didn't come. She felt the blood flowing around her body in anger, and in the funeral silence that sat in their hotel room in Paris she could only hear Alex's clicks of the mouse and her own heartbeat. She found herself beating the constant rhythm of her heart with her heel on the wooden floor, without even noticing it._

We could have had it all, _that's what she couldn't help feeling._

 _She almost fell down because of her vehemence when she suddenly stood up and rushed to reach the bedside table's drawer. She opened it with violence and threw all the papers she kept inside it into confusion. She leafed through her pencil calligraphy and finally found the one she was looking for, humming that catchy rhythm in her head. She grabbed a pencil and bent over the floor looking like a freak._

I can't help feeling

We could have had it all, _she wrote under the lyrics she had carved out some time ago._

" _Piper? What are you doing?"_

 _Alex had left the computer and was standing in front of her. The first thing Piper noticed when she raised her eyes were Alex's black skinny jeans covering her legs. Alex looked furious._

" _No-nothing."_

" _You think I don't know what you're doing? I mean, you keep those in your fucking drawer!"_

" _I just write stuff, Alex, I don't…"_

" _I need you to stop doing it. You promised."_

" _I specifically told you that I would never do that again. And I didn't sing" she stood up and faced Alex pointing her forefinger at her. "I just put down with a pencil the shit stuff I feel in this fucked-up life we have, and that you don't care about."_

" _Jesus, fucked-up? Don't you dare push this on me!"_

" _I can't even write now? You don't trust me!" she lifted up the white page with her new song on it and shook it in the air. "You control me and everything I do as if I were just another drug mule to you"_

" _You knew exactly what you were getting into. If this is a fucked-up life for you, being with a drug dealer, you know what? Your life would have been even more fucked-up without me. Cause you're a weak."_

 _Piper felt the muscles in her face abandon her and her eyes fell into a deep look of sadness. That fucking hurt and tears were coming up to her eyes to show Alex how right she was and how flowed and weak she truly was. But she wasn't going to let this happen. She closed her hand into fists._

" _And you, Alex" she said, taking a step closer to Alex's face. "You are ruining everything good in your life."_

 _She ran to the door and slammed it behind her. She thought she had to go back and maybe say "fuck you" but at that thought her eyes filled with the tears she had been keeping away. She covered her mouth with one hand and ran down the stairs, unable to see and know where her legs were going to take her._

 _When she arrived in the hotel lobby she realized, from the looks people gazed at her, she looked like a clown. Her hair was a mess, she was crying and her face was covered with make-up and tears._

 _She stepped into the bar, a small dark room with some dim lights in the corners. The few guys in there were all sitting at a table or at the bar counter, their eyes lost in the glass of drink they had ordered. A small girl with long black hair was hiding behind a guitar on the stage, whispering a ballad in a weak voice you could barely hear. Piper looked around._ It isn't worth it, _she thought, but she knew she was going to do it anyway. She walked to the stage with a determined look in her eyes. There was a guy, staring at the girl on stage with a nauseated look on his face and with his arms crossed on his chest. Piper tapped his shoulder._

" _I have a song" she said._

" _So do I, kid" he replied, not even bothering to look at her._

" _I want to sing"_

 _Butterflies tickled her stomach from the inside, as she spat out those words and felt she was cheating on Alex. At least, on the promise she had made to Alex._

" _What are you, drunk? Fucking meth-head."_

 _He turned his back to her. Piper waited for the song to finish, listened to the sad silence with no clapping that followed, then rushed on the stairs that led to the stage. She grabbed the guitar from the girl with long black hair –actually she looked more like a 6-years-old- and sat on the high stool in the middle of the stage. The little girl looked frightened and stared at her, torturing her hands, before she rushed off the stage and ran away._

 _Piper placed her foot on the bar of her seat and put the guitar on her thigh. She pushed away the microphone, she didn't need it and probably the guy with the crossed-arms on his chest was going to turn it off anyway. She looked around at the few customers in the bar. They looked at her like she was a freak and a meth-had, yeah, but at least she had their attention._

" _What the fuck, kid, get down or I'll immediately call…"_

 _The husky sound of the guitar chords tuned with the first words that came out with her powerful voice._

" _There's a fire, starting in my heart"_

 _She didn't feel as if time had stopped, but as if she had stopped time._

" _Reaching a fever pitch, it's bringing me out the dark"_

 _Her ears were filled with her own voice, so she couldn't hear the silence that fell on the dark smoke-filled room. The bartender stopped cleaning the sticky signs of glasses left by customers on the counter and looked at her._

" _Finally I can see you crystal clear_

 _Go 'head and sell me out and I'll lay your ship bare"_

 _People standing in the hotel lobby with their cocktails in their hands and their fake smiles on heard that voice and stepped into the bar._

" _The scars of your love remind me of us_

 _They keep me thinking that we almost had it all"_

 _There was one man, sitting at a table in the less-illuminated corner of the bar. He raised his elbow and pushed his head back as he threw the burning drink down his throat. He then slammed the glass on the wooden table and cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand. He never took his eyes off Piper._

" _I can't help feeling_

 _We could have had it all"_

 _Her strong, vibrating voice pressed the last word and filled that vulgar bar in a hotel in Paris with one of the most powerful voices music was still to meet. She sang her future hit and when she finished she rushed down the stage crying. The man that a few moments before had called her "meth-head" stood there with his arms hanging on his sides and moved away to let her pass. So did everyone else in that room, they all turned their head to follow her contrail. The man in the corner placed some banknotes on the table, adjusted his expensive beige jacket and then followed her._

 _Outside, a storm was coming. Piper raised her eyes to the grey clouds and wished that violent wind could brush her away as it did with the tree's leaves in the hotel garden. But it didn't, so she stood there like a stupid with her arms stretched horizontally. The wind shook the great trees and looked it was about to brush away the umbrellas and beach chairs by the pool._

 _The water started to come down wildly and in a few moments the cold drops were aching and scratching her skin. Water and wind and cold embraced her as a thunder burst out in the sky._

" _What you did is no good, kid" she heard a man's voice yell behind her. She turned around and looked at the beige silhouette of a man standing in the rain, his chin pushed down on his chest and his hands in his pockets. She could barely see him through the thick rain._

" _Fahri? Is that you?" she shouted, hoping her voice was able to tower the storm's noise._

" _Nice little tune you got earlier, huh? Who could think Piper Chapman would turn out to be so…special?"_

 _Something in his voice and in the way he came nearer to her, with his shoulders up to protect himself from the storm's rage, made Piper feel uncomfortable. She felt there was something threatening in him._

" _You won't shut your cute little mouth up, will you? Oh, don't worry, you can keep pretending your life's a musical"_

" _Fahri? Is everything OK? Why don't we go talk in some…"_

" _We don't care if you want to tell the whole world who Kubra is and what drug cartel you girlfriend works for." Piper could barely hear him through the wind and thunders. Now he was so close to her they were only a few centimeters apart. "You can sing it as loud as you want. It's just Kubra doesn't like music as much as he likes being disobeyed. He sends you a message"_

 _She didn't have the time to ask what the message was. Mind can be so stupid, she remembered thinking. As Fahri suddenly twitched his arm and his whole body sprang forward to her, she could do nothing but admire the elegance of that catlike gesture._

 _His right fist hit her right below her left eye with the rage of the thunder that echoed above their heads. As her face hit the waterlogged tarmac, she thought she was never going to open that eye again._

" _Kubra thinks you are damaging both business and Alex. So you will leave Alex alone. Take your childish songs and walk away and never show up again. You can tell her you don't love her, that you never did." Piper grabbed the part of her face that was burning with pain. She stared at the impressive figure of Fahri towering her as the water came down his beige suit. He leant down to her and lowered his voice._

" _If you don't, we'll make sure Alex is dead before you can change your mind. Then we'll come to you, and Kubra himself will cut your mouth off. It's up to you, kid."_

 _Piper closed her eyes and let her head fall on the wet tarmac while violent drops tapped her face. The wind brought more water on her clothes, stuck to her skin, and she stood there for an endless time. She wasn't sure whether what just happened was a hallucination caused by both her broken heart and by the storm. But when she got up and walked into the hotel's lobby and then into the elevator, causing all the eyes in the room to turn alarmed to her, she began to realize it had really happened. She stood still as the elevator drove her through the building, staring at her dripping image in the mirror. Blood came out of her lips. There was a purple bruise swelling under her left eye, but she didn't dare touching it. When she stepped out of the elevator, she took out the entrance card from her jeans' pocket and passed it through the door._

 _Her first terrified thought was that Kubra had sent his message to Alex too. Pillows were thrown all over the room, the seat in front of the computer was overturned on the floor and gave Piper a nauseating sense of chaos. A black suitcase was wide-opened on the floor with a bunch of clothes thrown in it._

" _Alex?" she whispered, coping with the pain that single word cost to her aching face._

 _Alex had her back turned to Piper. She was sitting on the edge of the bed opposite the door, her hands resting in her lap and her eyes fixed on an empty point right in front of her._

" _Alex? What happened?" she stepped forward causing Alex to jump away from where she was sitting. She turned her body toward Piper and her face stated crumbling like a broken puzzle._

" _Piper? Oh my God" she stood up and ran to her. "Where were you, who…" she lifted her fingers to Piper's face with a horrified look and then grabbed her shoulders and shook them gently. "Who did this to you?"_

" _It's OK, Alex. I just…there was a storm and I couldn't…" she burst into tears._

 _Alex grabbed her wrists and dragged her to the bed, helped her sit down._

" _I'm getting some towels, OK?"_

 _She opened the freezer's door widely. Her hands were shaking as she took a pack of ice, Piper noticed. Then she ran to the bathroom and came out with a clean towel. She kneelt in front of her and softly placed the iced-pack on her bruised cheekbone. Piper jumped back and moaned through her tears. Alex cupped the undamaged cheek of Piper's face in her hand._

" _Can you tell me what happened, baby?"_

 _Pipers shook her head, closed her eyes and cried. She felt Alex stroking her wet hair with the towel and gently pressing the ice on her bruise. She moaned again._

" _Sorry" a small worried smile curved Alex's lips and disappeared right after._

" _What's wrong, Alex?"_

 _Those words seemed to make Alex fall back in her thoughts. She looked away and was in that strange trance Piper had caught her in when she entered the room._

" _My mom died"_

" _What, baby…Diane died?" her voice stumbled upon words, she didn't know what to say and felt completely wiped out._

" _I'm so sorry, Alex"_

 _She fell down on her kneels in front of Alex and hugged her. She placed Alex's head between her shoulder and neck. Alex's body started shaking with sobs and Piper held her tightly to her._

We'll make sure Alex is dead, _Fahri's voice echoed in her head._

 _She found herself bursting out crying too, violent sobs shook her body as well. Alex grabbed her wet sweater on her back and closed her hand into a fist as she pulled Piper closer to her. Piper didn't know whether she was crying for what had just happened to her or for Alex's mom. Probably both._

" _It's gonna be fine, baby. One day everything is going to be fine again, I promise"_

 _Whispering into Alex's ear, Piper caught a glimpse of the pencil-written pages on the floor, the pages they had earlier argued about, and felt disgusted with herself. Disgusted because Fahri was right, she was just a stupid child craving for attention. She had broken the promise she had made to Alex by singing in the hotel's bar and now she was about to get Alex killed just because she couldn't keep her mouth shut. Maybe Fahri was right and she didn't love Alex, she never did because she couldn't sacrifice for her, not even to keep her alive._

" _I love you so much, baby. I love you so much. You're going to be fine" Alex's sobs seemed to calm down as she heard this and untied herself from Piper's arms to look her in the eyes. She heard that strange tone in Piper's voice._

" _We…we have to get back. I'm going to book plane tickets so we can go back" she was about to get up when Piper grabbed her arm and cupped her face with her hands._

" _Listen to me, Alex. I am going back with you to America. But this doesn't change anything. I can't be your girlfriend anymore."_

" _What? Piper, my mom just…"_

" _I'm going to disappear, baby" she couldn't help letting her face fall to pieces. She felt a hand pulling out her heart and stomach and tearing them apart as she cried._

 _At that moment Alex's eyebrows and forehead frowned. She looked down at Piper's blood with a sudden glimpse in her eyes, like she just understood something really bad must have happened to Piper._

" _Piper, you have to tell me what happened."_

 _Piper closed her eyes and opened her mouth and then her whole face contracted in a mask of agony._

"You will leave Alex alone. Tell her you don't love her, that you never did." Fahri said to her.

 _She leant her forehead and placed it against Alex's, just stood there with her eyes closed._

" _I can't" she said. "I really can't"._

 _She freed herself from Alex's hold and ran to the wardrobe. She started pulling out the clothes and throwing them into a suitcase. Alex remained on the floor, staring at her palms in her lap._

 **Thank you for reading, hopefully next chapter is going to deal with the laundry discussion and clear up some other things about Piper being forced to leave Alex. I'm also planning to write a chapter of their breakup in Paris from Alex's point of view. I'm really sorry things between Alex and Piper are being a bit rough right now but I assure you I love them and nothing bad would ever happen between them. There will be some nice cuddling chapters as soon as I get to explain what happened in the past.**


	7. Sneak under the blanket

**I changed my mind and decided there will be no laundry discussion, even if I might modify that scene and put it into the story in some future chapters. I just needed some Vauseman cute moments and I hope you guys find this Chapter stands up to your expectations.**

Piper leant her head back against the wall. She closed her eyes, even if it made no difference: the annoying yellow light in the room kept blinking on the ceiling and there was no way she could stop seeing it. Memories kept flushing back randomly, especially memories about her and Alex, since Alex was the reason she got in the SHU. She realized that this was probably the reason for all of the other inmates' screaming and hitting and yelling inside the solitary: memories kept coming back, but you couldn't afford to let them coming inside that cement box. So everyone went out of their minds. She suspected she was going nuts too.

"I'm gonna call you Rebecca» she said, her eyes closed. She absent-mindedly tapped the air scoop's grill on the wall with her knuckles. "You're just fucking with me and you've probably been in here for like nine hours, not nine months."

She scratched her chin with her dirty nails and waved her hand as to shoo away an annoying fly that was buzzing around. Was it? Was it really buzzing around or her mind was fucking with her too? Was that Rebecca even real? Why wouldn't she answer back?

She punched the air scoop with her hand and put her nails through the spaces inside the grill and began pulling it. She stopped when she saw the red tracks her hands had left on it. There was old blood crusted under her broken nails and fresh blood came out of the scars on her knuckles. She stood there, looking at those bruises with her mouth wide-opened. A sudden revelation struck her. How long had it been? How much time had passed since she had been there?

"Rebecca? You think I'm losing it? You think Kubra is going to kill Alex?"

She thought of what had happened in Paris and later on in prison, the day she was taken to SHU. She raised her eyes and looked around horrified.

"That's why Healy put me in here, right? He doesn't want to get Alex killed. He's doing me a favour. Right? But I didn't sing. Rebecca? I didn't sing, I swear I didn't"

A sudden metallic sound came from the red door. The words "KILL ME NOW" were carved on it and Piper stared at them as a sound of keys rang behind the door.

"It's already mealtime?" she asked, her nails scratching the floor as she moved backwards to the wall and tilted her head on one side with a lost look in her eyes. She hugged her kneels against her chest and covered her ears with her hands as the door opened.

"I don't want your fucking food" she sang, waving her body back and forth. "I don't want your fucking food, I don't want your fucking…"

"Let's go, Chapman. You're out!" a dark-skinned officer in blue uniform grabbed her arms and pulled her up.

"I don't want to eat, I don't want to, please don't make me do it, I don't…"

"Shut your mouth" the officer turned to face her as he was dragging her to the door. "If you want to get out of here, you'll better put your thing back together down here" he tapped the side of Piper's head with his fingers.

As they walked down the shaded corridor she caught looks of inmates locked-up in their boxes, their eyes popping out of their heads. One smashed herself against the door and followed Piper with her eyes, looking at her through the tiny window.

She didn't know where she was going, but was told to shut up. At some point the officer must have placed handcuffs around her bleeding wrists. She couldn't stop scratching them.

"Get inside" the officer said.

She got into the white van and sat on the empty back seats. She remembered she had already been there, in a time that looked distant like ages to her. She shivered with cold and noticed all the other guards out of the van wore jackets, while she was wearing the poor khaki uniform she had since she got in the SHU. That distant day, when Taystee was getting out and there was a party and Alex and her danced and then Mr. Healy arrived and…

"I'm so happy to see you're out, Chapman"

Piper jumped on her seat and leant forward toward that familiar voice. The smiling face of a girl with short curly hair was staring at her, with a hand on the steering wheel and the other one resting on a fashion magazine.

"L-Lorna?"

 _I've already lived this,_ Piper realized. Lorna, with that magazine in her lap, had already driven her to prison when she first got to Litchfield. "First time down?" Lorna had asked her, and now Piper couldn't help thinking this was a deja-vu.

Lorna's eyes frowned and stared at her with a stunned look, as Piper would say nothing.

"You're gonna be fine. We're heading back to camp now."

Piper didn't fully understand. Where was her meal? Her three different dinners mushed together into a mound? She felt she was going to throw up just by remembering it so she pushed that thought away.

A big fat officer sat on the front seat next to Lorna. O'Neill was his name, Piper remembered.

"We'd better get going. We're stopping down to pick up some girls from the dry goods lady."

Morello started the engine. O'Neill's plump face popped into the back seats and Piper pulled herself back against the window.

"Jeese, how long has it been, Chapman? A month? You look dreadful. I'm sorry for those, they must be tight" he pointed to her wrists. "I figured out you would be cold" he took a blanket from underneath his seat and leant forward to wrap her up. Piper tried to move backwards as O'Neill touched her and as he saw her reaction he turned to Morello and looked at her in amazement. Lorna returned the same puzzled look saying "I know, right?"

Piper covered herself with the blanket and pulled it up to her cheeks and leant her head against the window. She looked like a sharp-cornered cocoon, but she was too damn tired to give a shit about it so she closed her eyes and let herself fall in a state between sleep and wakefulness.

They were probably driving her to max. Maybe down there they just ate rats and they tasted better than the mushed-up meals from the SHU. She was so hungry and tired. Her last meal was a slice of bologna with mold on it. Then she suddenly thought maybe Kubra killed Alex and it was her fault and that was the reason they were taking her to max.

Zapping through her thoughts she didn't realize the van stopped. She pulled the blanket tightly to herself as the door opened and a brush of cold came in.

"God, it's freezing out there" a familiar voice said. Piper felt the back seat next to her being occupied by that person's voice and felt the presence of a body beside her. She didn't dare opening her eyes, though. If she did so, she would have seen the strange looks Lorna and the new girl were exchanging through the rear-view mirror. First confused, then suddenly aware and finally alerted.

Lorna started the car and they were moving again. Maybe Alex was really dead, Piper thought, trying to figure out whose girl was that voice. _Wait, Alex…_

She raised her head up and met Alex's eyes. Alex looked at her with the same shocked look, as if she and Piper had followed the same line of thoughts. Alex looked at the dark circles beneath Piper's eyes and at how wasted and skinny her face looked.

"Piper"

"You're not dead?" Piper burst out.

Alex gazed at O'Neill in the front seat, staring at them through the rear-view mirror and looking forward to shouting the usual "No touching, inmates". So Alex pushed herself back on her seat and waited for O'Neill to get involved into a conversation with Lorna about red-velvet doughnuts. Then she sneaked her hand under the blanket and looked for Piper's hand. Piper stared at her, scared and confused, her crystal blue eyes wide-opened.

 _Would this get Alex killed?_ she asked herself. _Would this save her?_

She didn't know, but she stared at the black hair that surrounded her face. She looked down at her lips and deep into her eyes and began to realize how much she had missed her. She grabbed Alex's fingers and held them tightly into her hand as her eyes sent her an emergency message.

 _I missed you. I love you,_ she wished she could say.

They stared into each other's eyes for a while. Alex's fingers gently touched her handcuffed wrists and followed the scars of crusted blood on her knuckles. A mask of pain contracted her face, as all that she wanted was to hold Piper in her arms and kiss all her bruises and protect her. She didn't want Piper to see her cry, so she smiled at her.

"Do you want to know why?" Alex said.

"It's not velvety!" O'Neill shouted. "And the only thing that's good about it is the cream cheese frosting!"

"Do you want to know why I am still here with you?" Alex whispered.

She squeezed Piper's hand and Piper enjoyed the warmth of her skin.

"Because I think that when you have a connection with someone, it never really goes away, you know? You snap back to being important to each other because you still are."

Silence fell between them as Alex passed her fingers on the back of Piper's hand.

"I missed you" Piper said.

"I missed you too, baby."

* * *

Two days had passed since she got out of the SHU, and still Piper didn't talk to anyone else. Not even to Miss Claudette. She just stood in her bed, covered in her blanket like a cocoon with her nose almost touching the cold cement wall. She had been skipping most of her meals and her working hours, but the guards didn't say anything yet. Maybe they thought it was the ordinary procedure for inmates coming out of the SHU.

She was lying in bed and from the voices of the guards around her dormitory she thought it was probably afternoon. She wasn't going to fall asleep very soon, so she just stood there staring with her hollow eyes at the wall, when she felt a sudden warm on her back. Hands grabbed her waist and wrapped her up with its arms. A raven lock of hair tickled her ear as the person behind her was sneaking underneath the blanket. She recognized that soft touch and smell of her skin.

"Alex?"

"Make some space, you dumb" she felt the naughty smile in her voice and involuntarily got closer to the wall so she could fit in.

"What? Alex, they're gonna write us down"

"Relax, O'Neill is on duty now, with his Wanda"

"What are you doing here?"

"I want you to be my little spoon" she whispered in her ear and Alex's breath warmed the back of her neck, causing shivers to run down her spine. She felt a sudden heat and stopped breathing as Alex slowly moved her hands under Piper's breast and laced her fingers on her flat belly. Piper could feel all the spots in which Alex's body pressed against hers under the blanket, like on her neck. Alex's breast pressed against her back and her kneels pressed against the back of her legs. Alex pushed her nose on Piper's hair and took a deep breath of that familiar, cozy smell. Then she took away Piper's hair from her neck and pressed her lips against the back of it. Piper closed her eyes.

"God" she said.

"What?" Alex smiled.

"I missed that"

"You did?" Alex let her hand slide on her belly and down on her thighs. She pulled up Piper's sweater and drew small circles with her fingers all along her waist, in a small space of naked skin between her trousers and her sweater. She felt the thickness and warmth of Piper's flesh under her palms and loved holding her in her arms. "Cause I think I missed you more."

Piper turned around and put her hand on the one Alex held on her thigh. Their breasts touched and Piper had to fight the feeling of heat that was growing in the lower part of her body. Alex pressed her lips against Piper's and as the kiss grew more intense Piper passed her hand through Alex's hair.

"You know" she said, as they separated their lips to catch their breath. "If I get back to SHU for this I may not regret it."

Alex laughed and God she was so gorgeous. A long pause followed, in which they innocently passed their hands on each other's bodies, trying to remember were arms and hands were supposed to be and how to caress each other.

"It's weird how normal it feels, right?"

Piper nodded, her eyes shining.

"Why do you always feel so inevitable to me?" she asked.

"I heart you"

"You heart me?" Piper chuckled.

"Yeah. I don't say that to everyone. You have to say it back."

Piper cupped Alex's face with her hand.

"I heart you too, you dumb."

"But?"

 _But by hearting you I fear I might get you killed._

"But I must tell you something"

She was afraid that by telling her what she had to tell she was going to ruin that rare moment of peace between them. It was as if someone or something had decided that their happiness lasted too long and had to come to an end. But that was what Piper wanted her life to be like, just loving each other on the couch in their home.

How stupid she had been for so much time. She didn't need travelling, beaches and cocktails, adventures, she just needed someone to spend her "forever" with, someone with a warm chest to rest her head on when she was tired and someone to laugh with, covered under a blanket in a cold prison's bed. Alex was everything she ever wanted. And that was exactly the reason she had to tell her.

"What's going on, Piper?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed a lump that was building inside her throat.

"Promise me you won't get angry for the time I need you to shut up and listen to me"

"You know I can't promise that" she smiled, but then turned serious, looking at Piper's expression.

Piper took a deep breath and poured it all out quickly, without ever catching her breath.

"I talked to Kubra. I mean I didn't. It was Fahri, that time back in Paris, remember? He told me to stay away from you. He told me they were going to kill you, I mean both of us, if I didn't stop singing. I had to leave, and I stopped singing. I mean, not really" Alex furrowed her eyebrows, her eyes started to get alarmed. "I took up a false name and pretended I was this Adele and I had an album come out, but Kubra never got to me so I guess he was OK with it and I was stupid, I know. But now I'm afraid he could find out me and you are like…" she paused and looked at Alex in confusion. Alex smiled, waiting for her to go on with a challenging smile on her face. "I mean it's not like we're dating, we're in fucking prison, but I love you and I want you back and I want a life with you and I'm scared something might happen to you because of me."

She stopped and sighed and looked desperately into Alex's eyes for a response. But Alex was suddenly too close for Piper to look her in the eyes as Alex grabbed her face and kissed her. She pulled Piper to herself so violently their teeth bumped and they smiled on each other's lips and then their tongues met and said hello for a while. Piper sneaked her hand under Alex's sweater and stroked the skin on her back. It felt cold touching it.

"Hey" Piper pulled herself away from the kiss. "Wait, you're not mad at me?"

"Mad?" Alex shouted, her face was red because of the wave of heat that passionate kiss had brought between them. "I would strangle you with my bare hands. Because you didn't just leave me, but you left me so you could stupidly commit suicide by releasing albums so Kubra could kill both of us" she meant it, Piper realized, but she didn't sound angry as she said that.

"And Fahri? That son of a bitch hit you?" Alex grabbed Piper's face and pushed it into her neck, stroking her hair. Piper felt Alex's fingers contract in anger as she thoughtlessly tortured her blond locks. "I should have killed him myself. But," she released Piper from her catch so that she could press her lips against Piper's again, this time smiling. "You're alive, and so am I. Plus, being stupid and reckless is one of the things I love most about you."

"So…you're not worried?"

"I'm terrified, Piper" Alex's face darkened. "But I'm also proud of you."

"What? I left you, Alex!"

"And I spent five years of my life thinking you were a fucking bitch. But you did it because you loved me. God, Piper, I don't know what Kubra wants from us, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Piper's face widened up in a great smile.

"Is this an official marriage request, inside my bunk and in my prison bed?"

"Yes." Alex looked firmly into Piper's eyes. "Would you be my prison wife?"

Piper tightened her legs around Alex's and shifted her body weight to get on top of her. She kissed her, stroked her hair behind her ears.

"Yes. I'd love that."

There was a short pause during which their lips touched in a pure kiss.

"Would _you_ like to become my prison wife, Miss Alexandra Vause?"

"For the rest of our time together, there's nothing I'd want more."

They kissed and rolled on the small bed, laughing. This time, it was Alex to separate her lips from Piper's. She stood up leaning back on her elbow and passing her finger on Piper's lips.

"So, if you're really Adele…"

"Shhh!"

"…if you're that famous lady," she corrected herself "then why did you write all those songs about me? You're the one who broke up with me!"

"Shut up and kiss me!"

 **Thanks for reading, I'm planning a cliff-hanger ending next Chapter! Let me know what you guys think about the story so far.**


	8. Can't Fix Crazy

**I'm sorry for not being able to update this sooner as I've been away for a while. Most of this chapter was written on an airplane and early in the morning, stealing my friends' sleeping time, so I apologize to them too. Things are being a little rough again but don't worry and trust me when I say things will get better for Vauseman. This chapter is a bit messy as it shifts between Alex and Piper's points of view, so you will find each of them as a main narrator twice. I know it may be a little complicated to read but I really needed to give you guys both sides of the story, hope you enjoy.**

"Snuggles time?" Piper heard Alex's voice behind her. Alex's arms wrapped her waist and her hands moved up to Piper's breast. Piper had to let go off the screwdriver she was using to fix a broken toaster and let a sigh of pleasure escape from her lips.

"Alex, what are you doing?"

"There's nobody around. How about we..."

Piper turned around violently and laced her fingers behind Alex's neck. She jumped on the table, pushing back the toaster and pulling Alex tighter to her, in between her open legs.

"We could, you know?" she said against Alex's lips, her voice out of breath.

"Yeah, I mean, just go with it, non lesbians."

Alex and Piper jumped away from the passionate hug they were holding each other in and saw Nicky coming forward to them, a naughty smile on her face and her thumbs pushed inside her electrical fanny pack's belt. "You're just making out in the middle of the day and during work shift, in the pantry. But that's how you do it, right?"

She pushed her body weight against the table, next to Piper, and stared at them leaning on her elbow, with a hilarious look on her face, waiting for them to go on as if she were watching a movie on the couch.

Piper grabbed Alex's wrists and placed her hands on her waist, pulled her close to her so she could place a kiss on her forehead. She then closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Alex's, who was smiling.

"You scared the hell out of us, Nicky" Piper reproached her.

"Yeah, well? Not that I meant to, right?"

She grabbed the screwdriver and made her way to the door. Then she turned around and threw that malicious smile back at them, with a "See ya, non-lesbians!"

Piper grabbed Alex's smiling face in her hands and placed a soft kiss on her lips. They innocently kissed for a while, but none of them were into the passion that caught them just moments before.

"What's wrong?"

"I guess we've been busted out" Piper tilted her head, letting her hair fall on one side, and gave Alex a gorgeous smile.

"Yeah, but...Seriously, are you ok?"

Piper's smile faded away as she stroked her fingers on Alex's cheek. She kissed her, as if a kiss could delay the bad news she was going to tell her.

"Larry called."

Alex's body tensed up in her arms and she moved backwards to look Piper in her eyes.

"What did he want?"

"He wants us to get married. He wants me to get a marriage form so we can do it in prison."

"What?" she freed herself from Piper's grab and lifted her arms up in anger. "So you were ready to cheat on him with me while you're getting married?"

Piper's eyes widened up and she stood up, moving toward Alex.

"What? Baby, of course I'm not getting married..." Alex seemed to stop breathing for a while as she took in the good news, but then her face didn't seem sure whether to be relieved or just angry.

"Then what is this whole thing about?"

"Alex, calm down. I'm not getting married, he just wants to talk to you."

"So he can blame me and tell me how manipulative I am by stealing his girlfriend?"

Piper saw Alex was stepping backwards in defense and there was no way of getting her to be reasonable. She had planned to tell Alex how much she loved her, not Larry, and how much she wanted to spend her life with her, not Larry, when Alex backed up raising her palms in front of Piper's face to stop her.

"It's just I don't think he is going to let things go so easily. We've been together for a lot and I feel sorry for him, but that's it."

With those words, Alex's face seemed to get even more angry.

"You feel sorry for him, huh? Look, Piper. I'm sick of it."

Piper felt her heart ache as she stared at Alex's expression. She looked disgusted and moved backwards shaking her head. Piper couldn't understand that sudden burst of anger.

'I'm sick of always being your second choice, the rag you use to clean your shit with whenever things between you and Larry suck" she pointed her forefinger at Piper. "I don't want to be involved in this anymore."

 _Baby, you are my first choice. You are my everything_ , Piper wanted to say, but the words got stuck in her throat.

What was wrong with Alex? Why was she acting like that?

Alex kept moving backwards until she reached the door and Piper felt unable to stop her, by doing or saying anything.

Then she just stood there, her hands hanging on her sides, staring at the now empty space where Alex's silhouette had just been, waiting for her to come back and tell Piper it was all a joke. Because if it wasn't a joke, what just happened?

She tried moving her legs and felt her head was floating as if she just got out of a plane. She hurt Larry and she didn't even hesitate when she broke their two years of engagement with him, as soon as she understood how much she loved Alex and now...Alex just left her? Why?

She walked out of the pantry, leaning her body against the walls because she wasn't sure her legs could handle the weight of what just happened. She walked like a ghost, passing her hands on the wall with a hollow look in her eyes. She had an odd feeling, that familiar feeling that had spent so much time with her in the SHU: the feeling of being meaningless, that nobody cared about her and that if she died right in that moment nobody would have cared.

She got in her bunk and took advantage of Miss Claudette's absence to put order in her mind. Maybe Alex was just having a bad day. Maybe Piper had to prove her how much she loved her. Alex wasn't lost, she decided, and Piper herself wasn't a useless and meaningless person. She had a goal to give sense to her life: getting Alex back, and loving her for the rest of her life. But to figure out how to get things done and how to clear her mind she just needed a... shower.

Piper turned off the water and squeezed her hair. She moved away the shower's curtain and found herself standing right in front of Doggett.

"Wha…" she tried hiding her private parts and blushed as water came down her naked body.

"Don't be modest, college. Jesus doesn't like you, as indecent as you come."

"What do you want?" Piper was surprised by the sudden burst of courageous roughness in her voice.

"It's not me you should be asking, you know. I just follow the steps my great Lord has traced for me" she leant forward, causing Piper to move backwards against the wall.

"And what does your Lord ask you, Tiffany?" Piper asked ironically.

Pennsatucky looked at her for a few seconds in disbelief, then she sprang forward into the cube and pushed Piper's head against the wall. Piper felt a cold ache on her chin and, as she lowered her eyes, she started shaking with fear as she saw a sharp razor blade pressed against her throat.

Doggett pushed her back against the wall and whispered into her ear. Piper could feel the heavy smell coming out of her mouth and Pennsatucky's clothes pushed against her naked wet body.

"Let's just say my Jesus is a special one. He doesn't want Satan's girls to mess up with his business" Piper could feel the razor blade pressing deeper into her skin right underneath her collarbone. "And he doesn't like to hear Satan's whore shouting indecent, vulgar words. My lord's will tells me to kill Satan's voice." The razor blade traced a deep line on her chest and Piper moaned in pain as Doggett put her hand on her mouth to keep her silent.

"He wants you to feel on your body the same pain he felt in his heart when you disobeyed him," She spread the blood trickling down her chest, then she took Piper's hand in hers "with your narcissistic-college songs."

"What? Kubra? Are you talking about Kubra?"

"Doggett, out now!" an officer's voice shouted in the bathroom, causing Piper to breathe in relief.

Doggett placed the razor blade on Piper's palm and dragged it from one corner of her hand to the other, blood gushing out from the fresh cut. Then she took Piper's fingers and closed them into a fist.

"I guess next time we're gonna get more creative" she said, stepping backwards and hiding the blade in her sleeve. "But remember: my lord's justice is never late."

"Did he send you?" Piper shouted desperately.

Doggett smiled, then she turned around in the direction the officer's voice was now shouting again from. Piper stood there, blood coming out of her chest and palm, trying to catch her breath back and waiting for her heart to stop beating so violently. Then she turned on the water and stood under the cold stream, watching it as it turned red with blood at her feet.

When she got out of the shower, she grabbed the towel and wrapped it around her body. Because she touched it with her wounded hand, she left a large red stain just above her chest, where she had blocked the towel from falling. Blood also came down from chest and she began panicking. She changed into the uniform she had left by the sink and wrapped the towel around her hand. She zipped her grey sweater up to her chin.

 _Why did she do that? What did Doggett want from her?_

She realized she had to move, get to her bunk and stop the bleeding before someone got into the bathroom and asked what was with the red towel. She checked her image in the mirror once more, to make sure no blood-stains would show up through her thick sweater and left the bathroom, almost running.

She could feel warm rivulets of blood trickling down her chest and belly, as the cuts started to ache and burn underneath her clothes.

Was it because she had refused to be baptized? Or was that psychiatry story again? What did Doggett want from her? All this questions kept torturing her, as she walked unnoticed and got to her bunk.

"What happened to you?" Miss Claudette reproached her with that classy French accent.

Piper suddenly realized it was not just the blood that could betray her. Her face was probably still in shock and she couldn't stop her eyes filling up with tears. Crying, she unzipped her sweater and revealed her blood-drenched chest.

"I think I need help." she said.

Miss Claudette's face seemed to shrink and reminded Piper of the water and blood she had seen flushing down the plumbing in the shower. She grabbed Piper by her shoulders and helped her sit on the edge of her bed. Piper stared confused and unable to move, then she raised her upper lip and her face turned into a crumbling mask. Miss Claudette rushed to her locker, opened the doors and knelt in front of it. She got back to Piper holding a roll of paper, an unguent tube and some bandages. Piper felt like she was going to pour it all out, burst out in front of Miss Claudette: all the fear, the impotence and the anger of what had happened to her.

"Shh! Keep it for yourself!" she raised Piper's sweater holding it by the hem and smirked at the ugly cut on Piper's chest. "Whoever did this to you, I don't want to be involved."

Piper blocked the words she was going to spit out. They both stood in silence, as Piper held her sweater's hem up to her neck and jolted at the could touch of Miss Claudette's fingers on her chest.

"It helps stop the bleeding," she said, spreading some cold salve on her wound. "I was going to exchange it for a new nail polish but I guess that can wait."

She covered the cut with some bandages and used the paper to clean the blood on the rest of her body, with the soft and careful touch of a mother.

"But I truly recommend you not to fight back."

Piper felt she was going to burst out crying again and Miss Claudette noticed it.

"If you fight her, your time in maximum security will not be worth it, I assure you."

"And if I don't, they'll take me down to the SHU."

"And that will be playground for you children to play around, compared to max. And whoever you will decide to involve, you will be dragging that person down with you."

Miss Claudette pulled the bandages tighter around Piper's hand, causing her to lose her breath for a few seconds.

Then she got back up, she gathered her things and turned to her locker with and illegible expression on her face.

* * *

Alex sat on her bed and grabbed the blanket in her fists. She didn't much realize what just happened. Just a few moment before she was in the pantry, kissing Piper and enjoying her smell and touch, and the next second she pushed her away filled with anger. The word "marriage" drove her completely off road and as soon as she heard the word "Larry" coming out of Piper's mouth she stopped listening and thinking and seeing things right.

Looking back at how things went she realized she had overreacted. Definitely. Fuck. Piper's eyes looked so sincere and honest, but all she could think of was that Piper was fucking with her again, using her as a sticking plaster to cover herself with and to throw away as soon as she got away from prison, back to her Larry.

The thought of her and Larry together, walking with their hands laced tightly, shopping at the grocery's or living in the same house…God, even sleeping in the same bed…all those thoughts filled with rage and threw down a black curtain on her eyes. She couldn't have thought or acted differently, she just couldn't undergo the fear of being dumped, not again.

She stood there, staring at the empty bed in front of her, when a sudden realization struck her. Was she jealous? She had felt jealous before, for Piper was always so gorgeous and nice and fun and innocently flirty with everyone she met, but that kind of jealousy? Alex couldn't handle it.

"Inmate! What'c ya staring at?"

Nicky's voice suddenly dragged her away from her thoughts, the bushy-haired woman stepped into her bunk holding a rainbowed poster in her hands.

"So? What do you think?"

She raised the poster, driving Alex's attention on it. At the center the white silhouette of a bride had a photo of Lorna's head placed above a neckless figure. Beside her, holding her hand, there was a grumpy-drawn groom in a black suit. Nicky's head with her bushy orange hair was smiling on top if it. Bride and groom were surrounded by a detailed and colored mess of islands, beaches and cities. It was clear Nicky had secretly cut them from the library's magazines and stuck them on the poster with the shaky hands of a 6-years-old. There was even a photo of the Colosseum and an island with white sand and tall palm trees saying "Bora Bora" on it.

"Damn, you really got into it. Not bad. I don't now if she's going to be OK with the groom, though" Alex leant her head back against the wall.

"Yeah, who gives a fuck about it anyway, right? It's just stupid Christmas, family thing, you know?"

"I was going to make you some earrings, but who gives a fuck anyway, huh?" Alex laughed. As she was forgetting the rough words she and Piper exchanged a few moments before, she felt a rush of adrenaline creep inside her.

"Fuck, Vause" Nicky punched her on the shoulder. "It was supposed to be a surprise!"

"Yeah!"

"Bad day with that Chapman girl?"

Alex nodded, looking at the empty space in front of her. They stood in silence, thinking at each other's messes.

"Fucked-up, isn't it?" Nicky shook the poster and made it pretty clear she thought her gift for Lorna was useless. She couldn't help feeling bad about Lorna getting married, while Alex just thought of how right Nicky's words were. She had just fucked everything up with Piper.

"Hey Vause?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I know what I'd like for Christmas." She looked deep into Alex's eyes and placed her hand on the lower part of Alex's belly. Alex grabbed her hand in surprise, suddenly understanding what Nicky was up to.

 _I can't,_ she thought to herself. _I just can't. Baby, we're not getting married,_ Piper's words echoed in her head, and the image of her blue eyes.

 _Larry. Married._

Those two words filled her with anger again and she tightened her clasp around Nicky's hand and drove her inside her trousers, as Nicky placed her poster in front of them so they couldn't be seen. They kept looking into each other's eyes, trying to forget the fucked-up Pipers and Lornas that waited for them just outside Alex's pants. Alex repressed the moans that came up her throat. Nicky chuckled.

* * *

 _Whoever you will decide to involve, you will be dragging that person down with you._

Miss Claudette's words kept bouncing around Piper's head as she walked toward Alex's dormitory. Did she really want Alex to be involved in that messy drama she had gotten herself into? No, definitely not, but still she couldn't help running to Alex. She felt she needed to be held in her arms so bad she had almost forgot the fight they had before the shower. But as she arrived to Alex's bunk, she suddenly felt there was something wrong with her being there. Nicky was there too, holding an odd poster in her lap, and Alex and her were staring at each other with a look and a smile that made Piper feel uncomfortable. They both had red faces.

"Alex" she said, stopping out of her bunk. "Can I please talk to you?"

Alex and the bushy haired woman looked at Piper as if she had just interrupted something. Piper shifted her body weight from one leg to another, that uncomfortable feeling officially growing inside her.

"Fuck off, Piper" was Alex's rough answer. She lifted her arms pointing to the direction Piper came from. "Walk away, you and your troubles. I don't want to know anything about you."

Piper closed her injured hand into a fist and pushed her nails against her palm so hard the sticking plaster broke and blood started to come again. She stood there, feeling her eyes were filling with tears and blood was making its way out through her fingers. She closed her eyes.

"Please, Alex" she felt her voice was going to break. "Please, could you…"

"You heard the lady, Chapman. Just walk away." Nicky's voice said.

When Piper opened her eyes, she looked straight into her (ex?)-girlfriend's eyes. Her face seemed softer than before, and the anger was replaced by a sort of compassion, Piper realized. Of course, compassion for that poor-narcissistic college girl. Piper felt a tear coming down her cheek and couldn't stand it anymore: she turned and walked away, like she was told to. She couldn't read the satisfaction on Nicky's lips and the hollow look in Alex's eyes.

For the second time in a day, she found herself walking along the corridors, her weak legs stumbling into each other. She walked with her ear stuck to the wall, as to rest her head and hear the sounds that no one else could hear, hoping they could put an end to Piper's suffering.

She dragged her open-cut hand on the wall, leaving a long red trail of blood she didn't even notice. But this second time she was broken was different, Piper realized. Because unlike a few hour before, there was no hope of getting Alex back. She just didn't love Piper, or had gotten to a limit point with her constantly falling-from- the- clouds drama.

She suddenly heard voices through the wall. A soft, sharp voice, the prettiest and clearest she had ever heard. Her legs ran faster as she proceeded in the direction the sound came from, her ear sliding against the cold surface on the wall.

She got in front of the chapel's doors, and stood there, looking at the door's metal handlers. When she opened the door her eyes immediately skipped on the guard's face, who turned around to look at her with an annoyed face; they skipped Caputo's face and a bunch of other heads that turned around to look at her; she didn't notice the inmates sitting on the audience's seats and gazing with hypnotized eyes to the stage. Her eyes just fell on Norma, the person that voice came from.

 _Praise the lord,_ her beautiful voice sang. _I saw the light._

She listened to it for a while, falling in the same hypnosis the audience was in and feeling her hair raised up on her arms. Taystee, Poussey, Crazy Eyes and Black Cindy were right behind Norma, and when she finished they started singing.

 _I saw the light, I saw the light. No more in darkness, no more at night._

As she listened, Piper knew exactly what she had to do.

* * *

When Alex saw Piper coming to her bunk she felt like shit. It wasn't just guilt, she realized. She and Nicky had just finished whatever they were doing behind that poster and now they embarrassingly stood there, looking at each other. None of them could really feel comfortable with what they just did, it just didn't seem right. That's when Piper showed up.

"Alex, can I please talk to you?"

She felt like a rock had been thrown to her chest. As she turned to look at a broken Piper, with a pale face and a dim voice, she felt the burning need to take her away from that place, hug her and tell her she was sorry for the way she had acted before and everything was going to be fine.

 _Of course, baby, of course you can,_ she wished she could have said. But Nicky was there, challenging her with a naughty look and the words just got stuck in her throat.

"Fuck off, Piper. Walk away, you and your troubles. I don't want to know anything about you." She answered back, automatically installing a furious look on her face.

"Please, Alex, could you…" those words broke Alex inside as well, as she denied her true feelings and tried to hide how fragile she felt.

Looking at Piper, Alex suddenly realized how wrong she was and how much she was hurting her. Piper's face seemed to crumble as she looked about to cry. A sudden movement of her arms, hanging loose on her sides, drove Alex's attention to her hand. It was folded in some white and red paper and she had those strange red stains on her neck too.

 _Is that..?_

She didn't even had the time to process it as Nicky roughly sent her away and Piper turned around and left. As soon as her tiny-blond figure disappeared she began burning inside with guilt and worry. Why would she want to talk to her? Was Piper trying to put things back together after the fight they had? Wasn't it too soon?

She and Nicky separated as they both went to the jobs they were assigned to. As she stepped into the laundry, Alex couldn't help thinking something bad happened to Piper. She went on the back of her desk and started picking up laundry sacks and unfolded them on the table. Her mind was not there, though.

She didn't even notice the unpleasant look on Doggett's face, who kept staring at her from behind the dryer's door. She then slammed the door intentionally and Alex woke up from her thoughts.

"Hey, lesbian" Doggett came forward with her hands in her sweater's pockets. "Have you seen college?"

Seeing no sign of recognition on Alex's face she continued.

"Satan's girl? Chapman? You sure she's alright?"

"Just leave her alone."

"Cause, you know," she pulled out a toothbrush from her pocket and placed it in front of her eyes. "We're on this big, creative project together."

She laughed with her horrible toothless mouth, then turned and almost ran out of her room. Alex didn't think there was anything that made sense of what she'd just say. She was just a delirious meth-head with no teeth, playing around with a toothbrush like a freak.

Alex grabbed another laundry bag and absent-mindedly pulled off the yellow note on it. 304, Chapman. Her heart started stupidly beating faster. Even if it was Piper's junky and smelly stuff, it was _her_ stuff. If there was one positive side of working in the laundry, it was the fact that she could touch the clothes her skin had been into, the cloth that had captured the familiar smell she was used to find on her pillow in the morning, after they had slept together.

But as Piper's clothes fell on the table, Alex's eyes filled with horror. Another inmate probably wouldn't have noticed it and could've just thrown that bag in the washing machine with the others. Alex grabbed Piper's grey sweater and held it up by the sleeves. There was blood everywhere. Her fingers started jumping faster through the pile of clothes, her thoughts ran faster. She took a blood-soaked towel and she felt her heart just skipped some beats.

The blood. The pale face. _Can I please talk to you?_ The red stains. _You sure she's alright?._ Doggett, toothbrush, blood. Everything connected and Doggett's words and grin suddenly made sense. She raised one hand to cover her wide-opened mouth, her eyes filled with shock. Her legs started running without even noticing.

 _What have I done to you, Pipes?_

 **Let me know if you liked it!**


	9. Everything else disappeared

**I just realized the scene with Norma singing in the last episode of season 1 takes place in the chapel but I called it "auditorium". I'm gonna change this in my previous chapter but just wanted to let you know so you don't get confused. This chapter might seem a bit dark and there are descriptions of violence some might find disturbing so I apologize to those who won't enjoy reading it.**

 **I realize the way Alex and Piper first met in the bar and Alex lovingly teasing Piper is just perfect and this is my modest and slightly modified version of it, I know there's no comparison but hope you enjoy!**

 **Things will get better, promise!**

Alex felt like she had just finished digging in all of the most secret corners of Litchfield, but Piper was nowhere to be found. She looked for her in her bunk, then she ran to the bathroom, causing several guard to yell back at her "No running, Vause!"

She looked in the yard and checked the electrical shop, then she went back to the pantry and to the laundry. But it wasn't just about Piper. It was like the whole prison had disappeared and left her alone running along the empty corridors.

When she finally realized it was Christmas Eve, she arrived in front of the chapel's door all sweaty and out of breath. She could hear voices coming out of it so she violently pushed the doors wide open, just in time to hear her familiar voice coming from the stage.

"I used to have a friend" Piper said, sitting on a tall footstool, holding the microphone down to her mouth. The other hand was holding a guitar in her lap and she was standing right in the yellow spotlight, and the other inmates dressed up in fancy costumes behind her got off the stage gazing at her with annoyed looks. The whole public was whispering and chuckling in surprise, what was that Chapman going to do?

 _Piper._

Alex stopped in the middle of the corridor that led to the stage, her heart beating fast and her mouth slightly open. She didn't have the time to breathe in relief for finding Piper was out of danger. She felt this wasn't going to last long.

"Her name was Adele" Piper continued and a sudden silence fell on the chapel. "This song is a cover and it's for her" Alex felt Piper was looking straight into her eyes as she said that, but the yellow spotlight Piper was in prevented Alex from being sure it was her Piper was addressing her eyes to.

She started strumming the guitar in that unbearable silence and her voice came out strong and confident. Alex felt shivers run down her spine as she had forgotten how beautiful she was when she sang.

"Kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness."

Piper's voice drove Alex back to a memory she could never forget.

 _"They took my moisturizer, guys. I had to walk through the airport barefoot" Alex laughed with her friends and pushed another shot of alcohol down her throat. As she let the feeling of burning warmth invade her, she heard that voice._

 _"Kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness."_

 _She turned around and almost pushed down a few glasses from the table. Maybe she was drunk or high or just lonely but when she heard that impressive husky voice for the first time in her life, she thought that was a voice she could fall in love for._

 _"I just wanted you to know that, baby, you're the best"_

 _Alex dropped the empty glass on the table, she stood up and made her way through the crowd like a hypnotized ghost. She didn't even notice the way her friends sitting around the table behind her looked at her and furrowed their eyebrows, thinking she was acting like a freak. She didn't notice how people inside that run-down pub had stopped talking and drinking and even breathing, their eyes laced to the girl on stage._

 _"I got my red dress on tonight, dancing in the dark in the pale moonlight"_

 _The way her long blond locks fell like waves on one side of her head, as she leant forward on the guitar and to the microphone, the way she closed her eyes and pushed her head back in the yellow light… Alex thought it was just stunning. She was surprised such an impressive voice could come out of that beautiful, fragile, blond girl. She stopped right in front of her under the stage and when the blonde opened her eyes and passed them on the crowd, Alex felt their eyes connected for a short moment._

 _"Oh, my God, I feel it in the air, Honey, I'm on fire, I feel it everywhere, nothing scares me anymore." She kept singing._

 _Who was she? How come Alex hadn't met her before, that beautiful girl with that stunning voice? She swallowed, captured in the girl's gaze and in her lips and felt like she had been missing so much her whole life._

 _"I just wanted you to know that, baby, you're the best."_

 _Alex was sure now. The blond girl's eyes didn't just glimpse at her, but she was staring at Alex. Looking at the way she leant forward on her guitar, Alex thought she was trying to reach her. The blond girl wasn't just looking at her, she was talking and singing to her as if no one else was in that bar except the two of them. Alex realized that no matter who that girl was, she was never going to forget that song._

 _"Got that summertime, summertime sadness" as she pushed her head back and shouted the last word her voice seemed as if it was breaking with emotion. The guitar stopped and as clapping and screaming came out from the public Alex noticed the girl was crying. She placed the guitar in the frame beside her footstool and almost stumbled on her own feet as she ran away behind the stage._

 _Alex furrowed her eyebrows, as the clapping kept coming to an empty stage now. She wanted to know who she was and what possibly could have gone wrong while she was singing. She looked around and placed herself in front of the "Staff Only" entrance, hoping she would eventually show up and Alex would come up with something to meet her. But she stood there for what seemed a long time, and the blond girl wouldn't show up. Through the slightly open door she finally recognized her. The blonde was almost running to the door Alex was standing by, a furious look printed on her face. She was followed by a young man with short black hair. They seemed as they were roughly arguing. Alex found herself blushing in embarrassment. What if she came out right in that moment and found Alex standing by the door, listening to their conversation?_

 _She rushed back to their friends' table, surprised by how coward that girl made her feel. And she didn't even know her. Not once in her life Alex Vause had stood back from trying to get a girl, but that blond girl?_

 _"Where have you been?" Sylvie asked, a worried expression on her face._

 _Alex shook her shoulders and pushed her away. Friendly comfort was the last thing she needed right now, she was just annoyed and pissed that she had left the girl run away so easily without getting to meet her. The odd feeling that she was missing something important grew inside her. A vulgar piano was playing in the back, but come on, who cares about that shit music, she thought, burning with the desire of seeing her or listening to her voice once more._

 _She secretly followed the blonde girl's movements with the corner of her eye. She could see she was still arguing with that guy in the bar and she found herself hating him just because she was annoying her. She wondered why were they arguing. Then her thoughts were blocked by a sudden fear: was that her boyfriend?_

 _She stood still, listening to the now pointless talks of her friends, tormenting herself with the thought the blondie had a boyfriend. As she raised her eyes from a piece of paper she was absent-mindedly torturing in her hands, she saw a blond waterfall of blond locks hanging loose on the back of a familiar sweater. The girl was sitting at the bar's counter and leaning forward to an empty glass. She was alone and looked like she wanted to drown all her sorrows in alcohol. Alex stood up and rushed to where she was sitting, before she could lose her again. She thought she was worth a try._

 _"Can I have a Margarita, please?" Alex heard her saying. She was surprised by how soft and harmless her voice sounded now that she was away from her guitar._

 _"It's a little cold out for a Margarita, don't you think?" The blond girl turned her head toward Alex and looked at her in confusion. Then Alex felt the girl was examining every single corner of her face and she noticed she had beautiful blue eyes and that she had cried. A gorgeous smile bent the girl's lips._

 _"I think I might need to chill out a bit"_

 _"Is everything OK? I saw you on stage and…"_

 _"Sorry for that" the girl said, closing her eyes and shaking her hand as if she were trying to shoo away an annoying memory. Alex was just about to tell her how amazing she looked up there._

 _"It was awful, sorry you had to be there." She said as the barman placed a new drink between her hands, but she didn't seem to notice it. She wouldn't move her eyes away from Alex's, as if they were both hypnotized._

 _"Who are you?"_

 _"My name is Alex. I'm sick of thinking of you as the blond girl. So you are…?"_

 _"You've been thinking of me?" she tilted her head and let that brilliant smile escape from her lips. Alex smiled too, realizing how beautiful she was._

 _"Yeah, well" Alex blushed. "I saw you and your boyfriend had quite a fight, so…"_

 _The girl took the glass of Margarita to her smiling lips with a flirty look in her eyes, then she almost spit it out and leant forward on the counter holding her throat._

 _"My boyfriend?" she shouted, that big smile still on her lips. She gazed to the stage and Alex turned around to the direction she was looking at and saw the guy she had been arguing with was now collecting instruments and giving instructions. "Hell no, I haven't got a boyfriend, thanks God it's not him. He's my manager. Well, was. He wanted me to stop covering dumbass songs and bring him true stuff. I told him to go fuck himself" she took another sip of her drink._

 _"I'm Piper, anyway. Piper Chapman"_

 _She gave Alex her hand and Alex took it, smiling in relief knowing Piper didn't have a boyfriend. She forgot to shake it, though, and just held it in her lap, not letting go of it._

 _"Has anyone ever told you how beautifully you sing?"_

 _"Oh, come on, that was just awful" but Piper's smile widened up. "I'm sorry, I really am."_

 _"Don't be. Don't be sorry."_

 _They sank into each other's eyes and again, Alex had the feeling everything else around them – the people, the talk, the clank of glasses and the music- disappeared. There were just her blue eyes and her cold fingers, held tightly into Alex's hand. Everything else was just background._

 _"OK, then" she said, not ever moving her eyes away from Alex's. "But I really am sorry for one thing, cause I don't want to embarrass you but…has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?"_

 _Alex laughed, she leant forward and placed a kiss on Piper's cheek._

 _"So, what's with the summertime sadness?"_

Remembering that first time she met Piper, how young they were and how innocently they were falling in love, she felt her eyes were filling with tears.

"Summertime sadness" Piper sang, pushing her head back, under the yellow spotlight on the prison's stage in the chapel. Her voice broke in the exact same point it did the first time Alex listened to her singing, and when Piper opened her eyes she looked straight into Alex's. Tears came down her cheeks, just as the first time they met.

Alex smiled, touched. So did Piper, as silence filled the chapel and no claps followed. The inmates were just too moved and surprised by Piper's voice. Taystee had her mouth wide opened in one corner of the room, whereas Poussey was jumping around and punching her shoulder and kept saying "I told you!". They had recognized her, and each one of them was slowly beginning to understand she was really _that_ Adele.

Piper covered her face and ran off the stage, through the back room. Alex wasn't going to let her run away this time, though.

* * *

Piper got out and slammed the door behind her. She heard the noise of snow crackling under her boots as she walked toward the perimeter fence in the yard. Everything was so dark and silent. She hid her face between her bare hands, trying to take in what just happened.

She had run on the stage, taken the microphone from Taystee's hands and sang. At some point she realized Alex was there and that she was listening to _their_ song and memories just couldn't stop flashing back. Piper had seen tears coming down Alex's cheeks. Did this mean things between them could be fixed? She had to get back inside and find her.

"Hey! Hey! Where you think you're going?"

Piper turned around, letting her breath come out in a white cloud of cold air, and saw Pennsatucky walking toward her in an odd white dress. She was even wearing wings and a shiny crown around her head.

"Oh, no. You don't wanna fight me right now, crazy."

"Oh no?" she stepped forward, a mad look in her eyes. "Maybe you're right. I don't wanna fight you. I wanna end you right now."

She put one hand inside her dress and pulled out a familiar screwdriver. It was the screwdriver Piper had lost what seemed like ages ago. But how did it end up in Pennsatucky's hands? Piper didn't know, so she moved backwards until her back touched the fence, palms facing Doggett to stop her.

"Please. You don't want to do that. You'll be getting plenty of other years to your time in here."

"I got God by my side." She tilted her head on one side with a crazy look in her eyes, pointing the screwdriver to Piper's neck. "Cause I know who you are. You dumb just screamed it out loud and everybody knows it. You're that Adele girl, right? My boss wants me to smite you."

"So he did sent you."

"You should've kept your mouth shut."

"How much did he pay you, Tiffany? What did Kubra promise you?"

Her face seemed to burst out with anger as she got closer, just a few inches distant from Piper's face. She could now feel the screwdriver pressing on her neck.

"You never learn, do you? You will never shut your mouth, will you? God loves me. He don't love you."

"Did he pay you, Tiffany? Or did her force you to do it?" Piper knew teasing her was not the best way of saving her arse, but it was worth a try, even if her voice trembled. "Did he take you against your will? Cause that's how things have always worked in you life, haven't they?"

Piper didn't have the time to feel sorry for what she just said. Doggett grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the fence.

"SHUT UP!" she shouted, her face was an expression of madness as she completely lost control. It took Piper a few seconds to realize the cold ache in her stomach was Pennsatucky's screwdriver pushed deep inside her belly. She tried grabbing it and felt a warm liquid spread through her fingers. Doggett pulled it out, causing Piper to fall on her knees in pain, then she felt she was being pushed to the ground and Doggett's body was on top of her, punching her face with the back of the screwdriver and then pushing the sharp edge of it inside her stomach and arms and chest.

Piper lay on the cold snow, her eyes hollowly looking at the dark sky above her head as her attacker kept imposing pain all over her body. She felt a warm metal taste in her mouth so she tilted her head on one side and saw the door she had gotten into the yard through being opened. If only she hadn't done the runner one for the millionth time, if she hadn't escaped from Alex again, none of this would've happened, were the painful thoughts bouncing in her head.

Things seemed to happen in slow motion in front of her eyes. Pennsatucky's screwdriver doing back and forth on her body, the drops off blood falling on the white snow, everything was so slow. Even that elegant black hair flying around the most beautiful face she had ever seen, it seemed to take ages to cover the distance between her and the door.

 _has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?,_ she remembered.

The pain stopped as she realized she was looking at Alex. She smiled, inside her head, then she closed her eyes.

* * *

As soon as she opened the door to the yard Alex screamed, breathing out all the air in her lungs. She saw Piper lying under Doggett, who was hitting her with a sharp object, her hands and dress drenched in blood. Piper looked as if she was dead and she looked at Alex with empty eyes, not even seeing her.

Alex ran towards her and pushed Doggett away. She fell on the ground beside Piper and dropped what looked to Alex like a screwdriver. Pennsatucky's eyes, filled with madness and rage, told Alex she didn't understand what was happening and what she had just done.

Alex kicked the screwdriver away from her reach, knelt in front of her and hit her with her elbow in the face. Doggett didn't even have the time to see it coming as she fell unconscious on the ground. Alex then turned to Piper and covered her forehead with her hand, put the other hand on her blood-soaked chest and bent forward to her face, trying to feel if she was still breathing and her heart was still beating.

"PIPER!" she screamed. "Piper! Wake up!"

Her voice broke in desperation as she saw no sign of life on her pale, cold lover's face and the multiple stabs she had on her body.

"HELP, PLEASE!" she screamed as the door opened and a correctional officer showed up. "Please, she needs help!" she then turned to Piper, tears rolling from her face down to Piper's. She soon stopped hearing the voices coming out from the officer's radio and the voices of other inmates and guards emerging around them. There was just Piper and her, everything else disappeared, as it always did.

"Please, baby, come back! Wake up!" she stroked Piper's hair and placed a kiss on her cold lips. A rivulet of blood trickled down from one corner of her mouth.

"I'm sorry but please don't leave me. Wake up!" Alex felt she was being wrapped up by a pair of strong arms and pulled away from her lover.

"Please wake up, baby!" she screamed as they took Piper away.

 **Review if you liked!**


	10. Fucking Spike

**I'm really sorry I had you guys waiting so long. This chapter is kind of a deadlock one, there isn't much progress but I really needed it so I could explain both Piper and Alex's situation. I thought it was necessary so I could build up next chapter's situation, which is one of my favorite missing moments that I have so long waited to write about. I was really angry when they didn't put it in the second season so I hope you guys will forgive me for this chapter and give me another chance with the next one. In the meantime, I hope I could feed both my and your hungry Vauseman hearts with a tiny flashback in this chapter. Enjoy!**

 _Alex lay down her head on the bed and looked at Pipes. She had her mouth slightly open and her eyes closed as she was sleeping. She was holding Alex's pillow tight to her chest under her chin and Alex listened to her breathing in and out thinking how lucky she was she had fallen in love with that perfect woman. She looked perfect even in her sleep, surrounded by those golden locks that made her look like an angel. She took in the sight of her lover sleeping for another while, a smile bending her lips up without Alex even noticing it, as she started stroking Piper's hair. It was a Sunday morning and Alex had just came back from her business trip to Brussels and Piper was oversleeping, as she usually did after they spent the whole night making love._

" _Pipes, honey" Alex placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. Piper backed off in surprise, her eyes still closed, then she mumbled something as she smiled and started moving her fingers. "It's time to wake up" said Alex._

 _She closed her eyes and placed a kiss on Piper's lips. They were soft and warm and so thin she could cover them up with her own full lips…until she noticed Piper wouldn't move her lips against hers. Alex moved away and opened her eyes to look at her lover. What she saw caused her to back off in horror, as she took away her hand from Piper's cheek and stood up on the pillows._

 _Piper's face was so pale and cold it was almost blue. Her lips were violet and she wouldn't move as a trickle of blood started coming from one corner of her mouth, down her cheek and down the white pillow._

" _PIPER!" she screamed, grabbing her shoulders and shaking them up. Piper's head fell back on the pillow as life had gone out of her body. "PIPER, baby!"_

"Wake up, Vause!"

Alex immediately stood up leaning on the pillow with her elbow. As soon as she felt the rough touch of the pillow she remembered she was in prison. She stretched her arm behind her and her fingers started looking for her glasses. As she felt the solid touch of plastic under her fingers she grabbed them and put them on. She took a few seconds to focus her gaze on the person in front of her and realized it was O'Neill pointing a flashlight into her face.

She raised one hand to protect herself from the dazzling light and realized the lights of the dormitory were still switched off. It wasn't morning yet, and as she turned her head she caught a glimpse of her bunkie sleeping peacefully in her bed.

"What? What time is it?"

"I suggest you to move and pee. You're being processed out."

Processed out? What did that mean? Alex removed the blanket she was covered in and decided it was better to follow the instructions before she could wake up the other inmates and get their attention on her.

She was in prison, she remembered as she collected her uniform and followed O'Neill wearing her pyjamas. She had had a bad dream and woken up before she could start screaming, as it often happened, almost every night since… _Piper._

"Is everything OK with Piper?" she almost grasped to O'Neill's shoulders, hoping someone was going to tell her what happened to Piper and if she was alive.

 _Of course she is alive, stupid,_ she thought, pushing away the other thought she couldn't cope with. She was confident about the feeling she loved Piper so much she would have known in some way if she was…

"Know nothing about that" O'Neill's face remained indifferent as his mouth bothered to chew loudly on a gum. As he saw Alex's desperate face though, he seemed to soften up with pity. "I'm sorry".

Alex felt her shoulders falling down in disappointment. No one seemed to know nothing about her and no one could tell her if she was OK. A month had passed since she last saw Piper lying in a bath of her own blood that Christmas Eve's night in the yard, and the only thing that kept her from going nuts was the relentless hope Piper was alive.

She couldn't be…she shook her head. She couldn't even think of that. Piper was alive, she knew that, she felt her girlfriend was somewhere out there and Alex needed to be with her.

She entered the empty bathroom and took off her pyjamas, the she put on her uniform. The thought of Piper being away from her or being sick or hurt or suffering made Alex want to let herself go to the massive breakdown that had been waiting for her right behind the corner for more than a month now. And those awful dreams, that made her scream and wake up drenched in sweat? They were no different from reality. She hadn't saved her, not in real life nor in dreams, and there was no way she could wake her up or get her to kiss her or open her eyes. Those dreams always went like that and made Alex feel like a useless piece of nothing. What happened to Piper, it was all her fault. If only Alex had listened to her when she came to her bunk, if only she hadn't overreacted and pushed Piper away nothing bad would have happened.

She had promised her she would never let anything bad happen to her and she had failed keeping that promise. Her eyes filled up with tears as she realized this, following O'Neill along the yellow corridors and outside in the cold wind of January, where a bus was waiting for her.

She tried asking the unknown officers where were they taking her and whether they knew something about Piper Chapman but they acted as if she wasn't even there. She finally resigned to sit down at the back of the bus, behind some ugly-faced inmates in green uniforms.

She was afraid of how vindictive her ex-boss could be, but she never would have thought Kubra could push himself to the point of employing a Litchfield convict to kill Piper. One she learned Pennsatucky was led to MAX after what she'd done she had regretted not killing her while she could instead of simply knocking her out.

After she got out of the plane they put Alex on another bus and from the views she could see outside her window she could guess she was in Chicago. Kubra had been extradited from Europe and now they were looking forward for her to testify against him, her lawyer informed her a few days after she got in the new prison in Chicago.

* * *

 _Piper was lying down in her bed, her blond hair spread all over the pillows. She was half asleep but mostly awake and still she wouldn't open her eyes. An inebriated smile rested on her lips, as she rolled on the sheets inhaling the comfortable smell of her bed. She felt that if she opened her eyes she would lose that euphoric feeling that ran all over her body: the feeling she had just spent a night signing in front of a crowd of a hundred people. It was her first official concert. Piper smiled remembering it and hid her face in the pillows. She was a successful singer and she couldn't help feeling proud because of this. Oh, there was something else too, that Alex girl, she had met her a few weeks ago and they had exchanged phone numbers and talked through text messages ever since._

 _Her smile grew bigger as she remembered last night. Alex showed up behind the stages and wished her good luck, before placing a soft kiss on her cheek. Piper raised her hand and touched the spot where Alex's lips had been, hoping she could find a sign of her lipstick. She was so sweet!_

 _Well, not that sweet, after all. Because despite that being the first true concert in her life all she could think of while singing was Alex. That's not how she had planned her whole-life's dream! As she sang, she kept worrying she was not singing good enough for her and was ignoring all the other people hanging from her lips._

 _That girl came into her life and she just couldn't stop thinking of her. Did last night's experience mean that…Alex was becoming even more important than singing? Piper stroked the ghost of Alex's kiss on her cheek, that big smile on her lips. She finally opened her eyes and her mouth fell down in horror as she looked at the clock on her bedside table. 7:36 PM? She realized with disgust she had slept the whole day. Of course, there had been a great party after the concert last night and endless celebrations and she didn't' even remember how she got back home but still…sleeping an entire day was a lot more than she could think possible and it made her feel a little guilty._

 _She stood on the side of her bed, stroking her sleepy eyes and her messy hair and decided that the best thing to do in order to save the day was to have a shower. She always loved getting clean, it was her happy place._

 _As the warm water came down her body she found herself thinking how could it be to have Alex's skin against her, holding her tight and letting her hands slide on her wet body and on her thighs and back under the shower. She switched off the water stream and stood there naked, closed her eyes._

No _, she told herself._ Piper Chapman, you can't.

 _She was embarrassed by the way she felt toward Alex. She felt guilty because of thinking at her as more than a friend. She didn't usually have strange fantasies of having a shower with Polly or any other of her female friend, right? And Alex was just a friend. But she couldn't wash away the feeling Alex was different._

 _Her bathroom's walls echoed with silence as she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. Now what? she thought. She had never been comfortable being in the spotlights and never thought of herself as an attention seeker but after last night's experience suddenly being alone in her house with nothing more than silence to make her company made her feel…empty._

 _She walked bored through the house until she landed on the piano's footstool. She moved away the wooden cover and looked at the keys that stared back at her like a blank page waiting to be filled. Her fingers naturally fell on the right ones, as if they had always been waiting to be there. She played the piano, forgetting about time and dinner and concerts and Alex for a while._

 _She suddenly heard a strange noise and when she finally got out of her trance she realized the doorbell was ringing._

Oh God, _she thought rushing to the door._ How long has it been ringing?

 _She almost hit her face as she thrust open the door and stared at a bottle of champagne held by an arm covered in black leather._

" _So you really_ are _home. I kept hearing a piano and thought…" Alex said and seemed to measure Piper from the tip of her toes to the top of her forehead, a curious smile on her lips._

 _Piper looked at her black leather jacket and at how beautifully those blue locks fell down on her breast and thought she could get used to see that girl for the rest of her life._

" _I'm sorry, I was…" she stopped and furrowed her eyebrows. "Wait, you know where I live?"_

" _You gave me your address, remember? I thought I should apologize with you for not being at the party last night" she raised the bottle of champagne and put it beside her gorgeous smiling face. "Are you going to let me out here all night long?"_

 _Piper realized she was falling in that trance again. Looking at Alex made her head spin as she inhaled the sweet scent of her perfume. It was like that piano trance she had gotten into earlier, except it was better, because Alex was there flesh and blood._

" _Oh, sorry" she moved away from behind the door to let her in "Come in, please."_

 _Alex's face suddenly blocked as she let her eyes fall on Piper's long legs and on the sexy abs on her flat stomach. Alex was afraid Piper was going to notice she was staring at her but she just couldn't move her eyes away from her almost naked body._

" _What?"_

" _Mmh. Not that I complain if you're not wearing clothes. I like that in a woman" she gave Piper a naughty smile. "But you're gonna catch a cold"_

 _She stepped forward into Piper's apartment and found herself a few inches apart from her. Piper looked down at her own body and seeing her wet blond hair fall on her shoulders she blushed in shock. She was wearing just a pair of shorts and a black bra and her hair was wet._ Goddamn it, _she thought. She forgot to wear clothes after she got out of the shower._

" _Oh God, sorry. I…forgot…"_

" _It's OK, you dumbass" Alex laughed._

 _Piper felt Alex's breath on her face and raised her eyes to look at her. Her eyes fell on Alex's lips, so close to hers, but she tried focusing on her eyes. Alex could fell the warmth coming from Piper's naked skin and fought the impulse to touch it._

" _So" Piper said, stepping back to close the door and immediately regretting she had put distance between her and Alex. "What are we celebrating?"_

* * *

" _No, I'm not drunk" Piper shouted later and slapped Alex's hand away from her face. Alex laughed and pushed her head back on the pillows. "And no, last night wasn't fucking amazing."_

" _Yes, you were fucking amazing." Alex looked at her with a serious expression on her face, then she stretched her arm though the bed and caught Piper's fingers in her hand._

 _Piper smiled back at her, thinking that tonight she would have Alex's scent and the smell of her hair on her pillow. Well, actually not tonight. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table and saw the red numbers saying 01:42. They had been talking and drinking champagne on Piper's bed for more than four hours now. Piper got to know something more on Alex's past, including the endless love her words depicted toward her mother Diane. Piper told her how she had always wished having a mother like that and how her own mother had forced her to walk through a college graduation she wasn't even sure she wanted. Piper had never felt so open and honest towards a person as she was feeling that night, actually admitting things to herself that she didn't think she was able to confess. On the contrary, Alex told her that working for an International drug cartel was the best job she could ever have. Piper felt OK with it, and it wasn't just the champagne's effect on her mind. As long as Alex loved what she did, Piper thought she could like it too, even though she was more than just a bit worried for her._

" _What were we saying?" Piper tilted her head on her shoulder, looking with a smile on her lips at Alex, stretched on her bed. She constantly had to fight the need to reach her out and touch her or lay closer to that girl that was beautifully invading her life and now her bed._

 _Alex suddenly stood up imitating Piper's position and sat cross-legged in front of her in the middle of the bed._

" _The bastards."_

" _Right." Piper chuckled. "You know, I get them too. Most of the time they're blonde, and they are soft, but every once in a while, I do get one that is black and spiky and if you don't catch it in time all of a sudden it's like two feet long and it's growing right out of the side of your face, like this giant beard hair. I called him Spike."_

" _Spike?" Alex laughed and looked at her with her mouth slightly open and her eyebrows raised._

" _Yeah, I'm getting one right here, look."_

 _She raised her chin and pointed her forefinger underneath it, touching it as she looked for Spike and got closer to Alex. Alex's lips were now almost touching her chin._

" _Oh, come on. You have nothing like that."_

" _Yes, there's one" Piper kept looking at the lamp on the ceiling as she touched her skin. After a while, that strange feeling of excitement grew inside her as her and Alex were so close she could feel her breath and their kneels touched. When she lowered her eyes she saw Alex was staring at her lips with a serious expression. Alex looked away in embarrassment._

" _That sounds horny, though" she said, avoiding Piper's eyes._

" _What? Spike?"_

" _Yeah, you know, the black and rough beard hair women like in men."_

" _Ew! That's nasty! I don't like them!"_

" _The hair or the men?" Alex stared at her with a challenging look on her face as she tilted her head._

" _I don't know, I guess…" Piper's words slowed down as she could almost touch the tension that was attracting her body to Alex. Her own eyes kept shifting from Alex's lips to her eyes and she couldn't' help it._

" _You don't know what you like?" Alex's husky voice whispered._

 _There was this burning need inside her body and chest, and what was she fighting it for? She moved a lock of hair behind Alex's ear, then she closed her eyes and cupped Alex's face in her hands, pulled her towards herself and kissed her._

 _Her lips felt fresh and warm at touch, but as Alex's lips started moving against hers her heart began beating so fast she felt her head was spinning. There was a feeling inside her she could describe no better than with the world "sweet". How sweet and natural it felt to kiss Alex Vause._

 _Then they kissed hungrily, inhaling each other's taste as if they were trying to make up for all the lost time they had spent without knowing each other and for all that chemical attraction that had been between them ever since they met. As their lips started moving faster and wider Piper felt a passionate heat grow inside her –and yes, down there in her center, even though she would have felt embarrassed for Alex to know that. She needed to feel more of Alex's body against hers so she grabbed her waist and pulled her closer, but the moment their breasts touched Piper's nose bumped against her glasses and the kiss stopped._

" _I'm sorry" Piper backed off, out of breath, moving her hands away from Alex's face._

" _Don't be" now were Alex's hands that wrapped her cheeks. She gave her a reassuring smile, catching her breath and resting her forehead against Piper's. It seemed to Piper that she was smiling and laughing in relief. Piper kept her eyes tightly closed. Her and Alex's lips were red, marking the spots were each other's mouths had been._

" _I kissed you."_

" _You did."_

 _They stood in silence, kneelt on Piper's bed, Alex's forehead resting against Piper's._

" _Pipes. It's OK. Open your eyes."_

" _No."_

" _Why not?"_

" _Because I feel that if I do," Piper bit her lip, her eyes still shut. "I might know what I like."_

" _What do you like?"_

 _Piper opened her crystal blue eyes and they immediately fell on Alex's red lips. She grabbed Alex's eyeglasses and carefully took them off, pushing her hair back on her forehead._

" _I like you. And I like kissing you."_

 _She pulled Alex's face closer and their lips melted together._

" _Oh, yes?" Alex pulled herself away from the kiss after a while. "Because there's something I'd like too. I think that fucking Spike distracted me" she raised Piper's chin between her index and thumb and leant forward._

 _As Alex's cold lips reached the skin on her neck Piper spread her eyes wide opened and moaned._

The nurse came in and said "Good morning, Chapman". It was another day and Piper was awake but couldn't actually wake up or open her eyes. She wasn't sure whether she had slept, in that state between sleep and wakefulness she was in. How long had she been that way? She focused on her body that felt as if thousands of ants were using her as a bridge to tickle her between her head and feet. She could feel a cold, yellow light trembling above her head and she could feel it without opening her eyes. A rhythmic, metallic "beep" kept singing besides her and as she focused on her thumb and tried moving it, she realized she had a sort of pincher attached and a wire came out of it. She then realized that the sound of wind blowing followed every time her chest went down to let the air out. So the good news was that she was alive. The bad news was that she was connected to strange machines and didn't know whether she could open her eyes again or use her body.

There was one thing she was sure of, though. She had seen that memory, that beautiful memory of her and Alex's first kiss. Memories of her and Alex were the only think that made her company in that endless sleep she had been in for so long.

 _Wake up baby, please wake up._

Piper opened her eyes and finally put an end to her one-month coma. She gazed at the white tiled ceiling and her eyes moved down to the voice belonging to the woman she had thought to be a nurse and that made her company during her coma. She found she was a correctional officer in blue uniform, walking toward her with a pair of handcuffs in her hands.

"Welcome back, Chapman."

* * *

As soon as she could walk, they put her on a bus and drove her away from the prison's hospital, even though she looked worse than the walking ghost of what once used to be Piper Chapman. She didn't know where she was going and was too weak to ask. Plus, the anesthetics they gave her made her feel strange and just made her want to lie her head back against the car's backseat. She gazed at her handcuffed hands, forcing her eyes to stay open, and couldn't help shiver in disgust as she saw the wounds on her arms. They looked like purple, yellowish holes and there were many of them over her body and she wondered whether she had scars on her face too. She remembered the attack, nut doctors mumbled something to her before they let her out and from what her drugged mind could understand she had multiple minor cerebral damages caused by an object that repeatedly hit her head, which resulted in a temporary loss of long time memory.

Piper didn't know what that meant and she turned her head to the window just in time to see a familiar building. The word "SHU" came to her mind from nowhere. They were taking her to some place called SHU. She hadn't lost her memory, just….things were pretty messed up in her head. She remembered Alex, though.

She lost awareness of time and realized she was now sitting on a chair under the trembling light of a lamp on the ceiling, her handcuffed wrists laid on a metallic table. Her head was spinning as she inspected the room and realized it was some sort of prison cell. Better than her usual SHU cell with the red door and there were no inmates screaming they wanted to get out, but still. She focused her eyes and jumped on her seat as she saw a man sitting in front of her on the opposite side of the table. He looked old and had a puffy and furrowed face but he had a serious, respectful air around him. Piper glanced at his black tie and his brown suit and struggled to remember what was so familiar about him.

"Piper" he said, his eyes focused straight into hers. He laced his fingers on the folder opened right in front of him. How long had he been staring at her?

"I'm glad to see you. I'm here as your lawyer. Do you understand me?"

He waited patiently for Piper to take in his words. She passed her tongue on her dry lips and let out a husky moan, as her mouth had almost forgot how to speak after so long time.

"I've seen you before. You're…"

"Larry's father. Your ex-fiancé's father, remember?" he added, seeing no sign of recognition on Piper's face. "I see the doctors had their point when they said you were…in a rough shape. Never mind. Let's stick to the case." His face seemed to soften a bit as he saw Piper was struggling to keep up to his words.

"The good news is that Kubra Balik, the big jewel ring in your drug ring, was extradited from…"

"Where's Alex?" Piper felt her head was spinning and she began having a blurred vision of the old man sitting in front of her.

"You mean Alex Vause?" he seemed pretty struck.

Silence followed. Piper thought she had said "Yes, I want to know where is she and if she's OK" but maybe that just happened in her head. She wasn't really in control of the words that came out of her mouth and she felt her tongue was becoming sluggish.

The man who claimed to be her ex-fiancé's father and her lawyer closed the folder in front of him, pushed it aside and looked at her holding his fists into one another on the table. Piper could see there was a grave expression on his face.

"Look, Piper. I know you have been in a coma for more than a month now, but I thought they somehow let you know…" he took a deep breath and his chest swelled up like a turkey. "I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you. Alex got out. She testified against Kubra and she was let out early. Kubra was arrested. The trial…you've missed it."

She couldn't really process what that meant, but she felt there was something wrong about Alex being out without her.

"I missed it?"

"You were in coma. There was no way to know whether you would wake up and if you did, whether you would be able deal with a trial. Having missed the trial means that you will have to do your time in prison until the end of your sentence."

He paused, then he took the folder and a pen and was suddenly busy leafing through the papers and avoiding Piper's eyes. "You will be spending the next two weeks in solitary. It's the safety procedure. Then you will be getting out for a three-days furlough. Medical verifications are needed for your health condition and you will be able to see your grandma too." he smiled shyly.

Piper closed her eyes, felt the room around her spinning back and forth….What was he saying again?

"My grandma? What has she got to do with all this?"

"Right. You don't know" his smile faded away as he once again closed the folder and pushed it away, then he stretched one hand over the table and grabbed Piper's handcuffed fists, in a sudden impulse of compassion for that fragile girl. "Your parents have requested a special furlough, given your medical condition at the moment" he took another deep breath, that man took so many deep breaths she thought he might explode. "Also, you're grandmother's dying. I'm sorry."

 **I hope I didn't let you down and promise next chapter will live up to your expectations. Thanks for reading!**


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